Do you believe President Jagdeo? During this time where so many matters need redress he is promising law to ensure all taxis are painted in one colour. Our leaders always seem to do the exact opposite of what is required of them. The media has acquired responses from members of the general public and also taxi drivers and suffice to say, most of the respondents clearly abhor this latest seemingly nonsensical decision by our President. He has gone overboard here. In our society so permeated and flooded with poverty and breeding corruption, there is no way people can afford to import a specific colour of vehicle neither can they afford to spend tens of thousands of dollars to repaint their vehicles.
Then, what if someone does not want to be a taxi driver for the rest of his or her life? Our society is not one which is static or where people’s standards of living are stagnant. Persons can and will at some time or the other move up the social mobility ladder. Or does our President believe and finally accept that Guyanese have to stick to one level (of profession) in terms of standard of living?
One would expect our President to ensure other pressing matters become reality before even thinking about a law that stipulates all taxis are changed to a standard colour. Perhaps he could have ensured the decentralization of services such as passport applications and delivery, birth certificate and marriage applications, revenue licence applications and collections, etc. Much of the business of applying for such documents and so on is done at post offices in other developing and developed countries. But if our post offices in Guyana can hardly deal competently with the mailing business, then it is highly unlikely that they can take on those added duties.
One has to still travel down to Georgetown to apply for a passport, renew same, and uplift same. One still has to travel to Georgetown, regardless of where the hell they live in Guyana, to do business regarding marriage and birth certificates, even death certificates. What utter nonsense! But our President wants to make all taxis one standard colour.
We still have plastic bottles strewn all across our roadways, trenches, riverbanks and canals as our country becomes a mega dumpsite for plastic. No one seems to be concerned about this latest detrimental act towards our environment.
Perhaps a recycling factory could solve this problem? But no, our President wants taxi drivers to paint their cars in one colour for the sake of “uniformity”; it will be good for tourism right? Nonsense.
There are even other issues that seem to be engaging little or no attention from the traffic officials in Berbice, like the quarter-mile stretch of road on the Palmyra Public Road (near to the Berbice River Bridge access road) that has been marked ‘No stopping for hire cars and minibuses.’ Persons in the area are complaining that they can no longer access hire-cars and buses in front of their gaps but have to walk long distances out of the area where the road markings end. Schoolchildren are also suffering.
It is the opinion of the residents that this situation perhaps does not exist anywhere else in Guyana, and they are calling on the relevant authorities to address it.
In sector as huge as transportation, it would be hard to accept that out of all that should be done or could be done, President Bharrat Jagdeo is going to move to get a standard colour code for hire cars.
In some other news from Berbice, I am shocked to announce that there is a very unusual occurrence.
I can safely say that Berbicians have not had a blackout for the past two weeks or fourteen days. It is so strange that this is what our days have come to in Guyana – measuring blackout free days. To date (up to the time of emailing this letter), there have been 13 days 9 hours 9 minutes and 9 seconds of uninterrupted power supply in East Berbice. But GPL, if you give out all the power now, where will you get more from to give Berbicians for Christmas?
On a more serious note, as a letter writer and a concerned citizen in Berbice, I feel good knowing that maybe all my writing on this issue has paid off. I’ve attacked the blackout issue like no other citizen in this country, like no media house in Berbice and Guyana, like no organization, and thus, I am savouring this moment in time in our Ancient County, as it may be a time marked in our history, and one that may never come again. It certainly means that a victory has been won but the war on blackouts is still very much yet to be won.
Yours faithfully,
Leon Jameson Suseran
