Dear Editor,
After the last United Nations General Assembly the President of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo, walked out into the brilliant sunshine of New York and marvelled at the sea of yellow cabs moving through the streets. One can see him saying to himself, “Wow, I now see the Ministry of Tourism’s idea at work; I can use this to improve the image of Guyana.” So he gets home and calls a meeting of the taxi operators in Guyana and issues a directive that as of August 2010 all taxis are to have one colour.
Notwithstanding all the problems besetting Guyana: the crime situation, torture by the security services, the absence of local government elections, the abject poverty, institutional and public corruption, the assault on the Guyana Police Force, the demise of the rice industry, the failure of the sugar industry, the fallout from the Roger Khan affair, the allegations of sexual misconduct against an officer in the Office of the President, the fraud being perpetrated as the Low Carbon Development Strategy, our esteemed President can find the time to meet with taxi operators to issue a directive. To his credit, President Jagdeo did not choose a colour for the taxis (bets are on that it’s going to be yellow). So as not to be labelled a micromanager, our President is going to convene another meeting of the taxi operators with no less than two government ministers, Manniram Prashad and Clement Rohee, to select the colour of the taxis. May we suggest that the Commissioner of Police and the Guyana Defense Force Commander be included in this meeting since they too have a stake in the colour selected for taxis.
It is incredible that such high-powered government officers are being brought in to administer this directive. Even more incredible is the reasons articulated for the directive. This move is intended to improve the image of the country and help the security forces. Not only is this laughable but tragic. First, the image of the country is being sullied by the publication of the ills of our society, so now we are going to attract the world to Guyana’s door by having all taxis in one colour. This move is one of pure brilliance and could only have come from the genius of our government. Second, it’s is not good enough that all taxis in Guyana are already registered with the government. The security forces need to see all taxis in one colour to better perform their function. It might do good to explain how this is so.
Most amazingly the taxi operators did not object. This could be for only one of two reasons, to wit: 1) they have no intention of complying with the directive (no one in Guyana follows the law), or 2) they are so imbued with fear of the Jagdeo regime that they dare not object. It will be interesting to see their reaction when the time comes to pay the cost of changing the colour of their vehicles.
One may also raise the question of by what authority does our President have the power to order a directive to the taxi operators to have all their vehicles in one colour. Was this a cabinet decision? Is there legislation to this effect? Did the Minister of Finance consider the loss of revenue (waiving the licensing and radio transmission fees) and costs (educating the operators and teaching them first aid) in his budget presentation to Parliament? As it relates to educating the taxi operators about Guyana, we can hardly imagine who they are going to be telling about Guyana, and shouldn’t they have already learnt about Guyana in primary and high school?
As Guyana pushes to a low carbon economy we envision that taxis will be mandated to drive hybrid fuel-efficient vehicles. Our government has gone from the sublime to the ridiculous. In the tragedy that has become Guyana, this recent development has provided some comic relief.
Yours faithfully,
Michael Burnett
