Dear Editor,
It was the hope of the two authentic booksellers left in Guyana that after the end of Mr Shaik Baksh’s tenure as Minister of Education, the practice of illegally printing textbooks for schools would have ended.
Regrettably this appears not to be the case. Yesterday at the Ministry of Finance building, the opening of bids for the supply of textbooks took place.
Seven entities were hand picked to bid, viz, Giftland Officemax, Metro Office and Computer Centre, Gandhi Variety Store, F & H Printing Estab, Pavnik Press, Sheik Hassan Printery Inc, and KRSNA & Balram Printery.
The books that the seven are asked to bid for include books from (1) Oxford University Press, (2) Nelson Thornes, (3) Pearson Education, (4) Hodder Education of the United Kingdom and Royards and Caribbean Educational Publishing of Trinidad & Tobago.
I have seen the bid documents and there is one noteworthy incriminating stipulation which states, “the covers must be in full colour and the text content must closely resemble the original books.“
Yours faithfully,
Lloyd Austin
Managing Director
Austin’s Book Services
