Thursday February 09, 2017
PAGE 9
Kaieteur News
The AFC is part of the government The AFC must believe that Guyanese were sleeping while it was silent. The AFC has out of the blues called for the parking meter system to be parked. The AFC’s belated call has only come following a public protest by civil society elements against the parking meter system. It came on the very day that Cabinet met and expressed some concern about the burden of the parking meter fees on citizens. The AFC was part of the government which had commissioned two reviews of the parking meter contract. The first review concluded that there was nothing illegal about the parking
meter contract. The second study, done by the Ministry of Finance, opined that the fees would be burdensome. No one bothered to find out how the public felt. The public was never silent on this issue. Voices and words of opposition were expressed from the day this deal became public. The terms of the contract were lambasted in the media. The lack of public consultations was criticized. The fee structure came in for a hammering. The government was asked to intervene. It did not. It allowed City Council to vote on the issue and the Council approved of the deal.
It was public condemnation which caused the parking meter fees to be reduced from the proposed $500 per hour to the present rate of $200 per hour. There are calls now for the rate to be further reduced, but it not feasible for the parking meter company to go any lower. People who lived in certain areas where the meters were to be located complained that the meters would affect them, since many of them parked on the roadside. Was the AFC listening? Taxi drivers were worried about the effect of the meters on them. Did the AFC take them seriously?
Dem boys seh...
Old paper this time, sh** next time When people like stretch dem hand dem does collect all kinds of thing. But that ain’t stop people from stretching dem hand. Things reach de stage when Guyana get a world rating fuh corruption. De people who measure corruption put Guyana near de bottom of de scale. When this announcement come out de first time Jagdeo get vex. He claim how dem have people who trying to mek he government look bad. That is why he stop talking to Chris De Ram, de same Ram who he appoint to be chairman of de Guyana Elections Commission. But everybody use to stretch dem hand. Some of Jagdeo people use to stretch dem hand as soon as somebody win a contract. Dem boys seh that is why dem use to get kok wuk pun all dem road projects. De road build one day and bruck up de next. Up to now people stretching dem hand but de government planning to chop it off. Basil de Willie introduce some laws. One of dem is to protect people who squeal. That is de Whistleblower legislation. Dem got laws fuh anti-money laundering, laws fuh jail people
tek state property, and laws fuh people who don’t pay tax. Things so bad that de British had to come in to help Guyana. That is how dem investigate a rice board and find out that people buy vehicles fuh de board and end up giving dem wife. To show how dangerous things can get fuh some people, de man cut up some old newspaper and put it in some envelope. All de people at a seminar feel nice when de man tell dem that he giving dem a portion of his salary. Dem boys still laughing. De man share out de envelope and being nice people de people at de seminar did not open de envelope right away. Dem didn’t want to show de man that dem deh bad. But dem had to open it some time. Dem didn’t wait till dem meet home. De man tell dem that de lesson is that when dem stretch dem hand dem can get a pile of sh**. That nearly happen to Jagdeo. Dem boys had to beg de person not to do that. Talk half and watch how you stretching you hand.
Man who chopped neighbour over food gets seven years Bhajan Nauth called ‘Boy,’ ‘Lall’ or ‘Corilla’ of Diamond Squatting Area has been sentenced to seven years in prison for the felonious wounding of his neighbour, Hubert Jerry. Nauth was originally charged for wounding the man with the intent to murder him. He pleaded guilty to the lesser offence yesterday after his case was called before Justice Joann Barlow at the Georgetown High Court. According to the indictment, the incident occurred on December 30, 2013. As stated in the facts of the matter, on December 30, 2013, the victim was heading to his Diamond Squatting area residence and found Nauth standing at a fireside nearby, saying that he wanted to kill someone. Jerry told the accused to “rest himself,” and
continued walking on the dam towards his home. However, the victim said as he walked away, he felt something “bore” his side. He then realized the accused had plunged a cutlass into his body. Nauth reportedly pulled the cutlass out of Jerry’s side and the wounded man fell face-first on the ground. The attacker then proceeded to chop Jerry about the body, inflicting wounds to his arms and shoulders. The incident was witnessed by a community policing rank, who arrested the attacker. After he was apprehened, Nauth told the police that he chopped the man because he (Jerry) had thrown away his food from his (Nauth’s) pot. According to the report, the police observed a pot on two stones at the fireside, but there was no food in the pot and no fire be-
neath. Nauth was taken into custody and the cutlass was retrieved. The victim was taken to the hospital for medical attention. When Nauth appeared before Justice Barlow yesterday, he opted to plead to the lesser offence of felonious wounding. He was represented by Attorney Madan Kissoon. Following his guilty plea, the judge calculated a sentence of 10 years in prison for the offence. However, two years and three months were taken off the sentence for the guilty plea and for time Nauth spent in prison, prior to his trial. Hence, he is expected to serve seven years, eight months for the offence. The matter was presented by State Attorneys Shawnette Austin and Tameka Clarke.
The teachers had to negotiate with the parking meter company to be exempted from parking meter charges. Should this not have signaled to the AFC that other workers would be affected? Workers were asking what would happen to them if they had to pay for parking meters all day. Where was the AFC? The AFC is in bed with the government. The AFC is part of the government. If the AFC could not force the government to take action, then what is the use of the AFC in the government? What say does the AFC have in the government? Can it influence things within the government or is it simply tagging along? The government, of which the AFC is a part, had a second chance to park the parking meters. The government was required to approve of the bylaws. Reports in the media indicated that it did. The AFC must now say whether it
called on its partners in the government to not approve the deal. The AFC is afraid that it will lose its support base within the city because of the parking meter system. Civil society is outraged by the parking meters. The AFC has decided that it must now express its reservations. It has done so, but people will ask why did the AFC not use its position within the government to not approve the by-laws? The government itself, in the face of public pressure, is now expressing some reservations. But what good is that now? The horse has already
bolted from the stables. The AFC is now calling for the stable doors to be shut. A contract has been signed between City Hall and the private company which is implementing the parking meter system. There is one last chance for the AFC to show that it has teeth. The government has to gazette the by-laws for parking meters. Let us see if the AFC can force the government to park that decision.