Dear Editor,
This country always had crime. It is the inevitable fate of the destitute. There was crime during the PNC time and some criminal mafias existed. However, they were minuscule and had marginal influence on the overall direction of the economy. In fact, the economy shrank under the PNC. Burnham did not tolerate cartels, kingpins, syndicates and mafias on his turf. Then came the PPP. Things changed. Crime became a factor in the nation’s economic growth. The PPP has left several legacies, some good but many bad. But crime trumps them all. For crime hits home and hits home hard in the form of bullet holes, stab wounds, lost life savings, devastated families, human loss, acid disfigurement, grief, hungry children, cold sweats in the middle of the night, crushing fear, pain, emptiness, suffering and terrible loss. A government of 18 years not only failed to protect its people but their endangerment increased during its time in office. People are living in cages in Guyana, mental and physical. They are building mansions and caging themselves in them. They are afraid of walking on the roads built by the sweat of their own people after dark. God gave us 83,000 square miles and we are afraid of roaming and traversing it.
The nation’s growth since 1992 has been achieved with help from the proceeds of crime. If one removes the proceeds from criminal enterprises, we see a failed economy cringing in the shadows. Even in some legitimate industries crime abounds with crippling effect.
Stolen property of the Guyanese people ends up in the hands of those who become the new entrepreneurs of the nation, expanding their empires commenced on wrongdoing. These industries may be illegal but they can be taxed and then charged VAT on top of the taxes. Some think that if you can’t stop it, you might as well profit from it.
What happens if these illicit industries powering the country are to be dismantled? The curtain will be pulled back and the Guyanese Wizard of Oz will be exposed. If this economic laundering is to be exposed, the entire house of daggers will collapse. I am not talking about the crimes of incompetence, waste, outright stupidity, etc. I am talking about stuffing pockets, kickbacks, plain old thieving and elaborate schemes to siphon money.
But something has to give in this country. You can’t want the pleasure and not take the pain. You have to take both. The problem is that the poor and powerless masses get the pain while the rich and the powerful few get the pleasure. Sheema Mangar is part of the poor and the powerless. She got the pain after the painful sacrifice of saving for an expensive phone while a member of the rich and the powerful got the pleasure of buying that same phone as a financial afterthought.
When you build a house of sand and fog, all it takes is the sea and sun to see it for what it really is.
Yours faithfully,
M Maxwell
