With the election dust almost settled, I have some suggestions for important items the new government needs to tackle as soon as it gets in harness, but I am sure there will be a flood of other voices raising suggestions – some have already begun – so I’ve decided to shelve my big items for now and focus on some of the minor irritations or inefficiencies that we have to wrestle with every day, in the hope that the folks coming into power may be listening.
To begin with, when we start to talk about change, I draw to your attention, ladies and gentlemen, that there are businesses in this country still using a book with carbon paper when you buy something. That is a fundamental part of your business contraction (the Post Office is replete with it,
complete with the wooden ruler to tear off your copy evenly) which includes the laborious copying of information, coupled with the replacing of carbon paper for the next receipt; it leaves you feeling you may come out of the store and find trolley buses still operating in town.
Worse yet, in some stores, the person who then checks you as you exit must also write the information in a book before you’re allowed to leave. It’s all done very politely, mind you, but it’s a quick reminder of how far we have to go in business efficiency in Guyana.
Similarly, for the handyman I sometimes try to be, another frustration is the inability to get various sizes of items, so that you can find yourself, as I did recently, in a well-known hardware store, looking for bolts and nuts, only to find that while the bin with the 3/8” nuts was full, the bin with the appropriate nuts was empty, and as to when a new stock of nuts would arrive all I got was a very uncertain “Not sure, Sir.” In a Regent Store store where I asked for wood dowels, I got a dead blank face and a negative wave of the hand; no words; no Home Depot that.
A friend of mine recently sent me a diatribe about the long waits involved in getting his Guyanese passport renewed – folks who live here don’t need a recitation of the details – which resulted in his withdrawing from the effort after two days with the intention of returning fresh for another day. That’s one the new government needs to attend to pronto. Applying for a passport one is not asking for permission to drill for oil. It is a passport, a standard document supposedly available to all.
One should be able to go in there with your form and your two pictures, leave the material, and come back in two weeks or so to collect. I renewed my passport at the Canadian High Commission here; I spent 10 minutes, was told it would be generated in Trinidad, and they would call me in about two weeks to collect. Less than 2 weeks later, I was called, spent another 10 minutes at the Canadian office, and I had my new passport from Trinidad. Where are they sending the Guyanese ones to be printed, to Australia?
We also need to improve the quality of these personal documents. Recently, I had my Guyanese driver’s licence renewed at the GRA office on Camp Street. With all the array of functions now being handled there it is a very busy place, but I met a couple of friendly staff and was out of there in less than half an hour.
However when I went back two weeks later to collect my new driver’s licence on the card system, I was sure they had given me the wrong card; the photograph on the licence looked nothing like me; it was badly overexposed. One would have thought I was a Star Wars alien, or a druggie in withdrawal. I’m dreading the next time I go to rent a car in North America and hand them that new GT licence; I may have to end up using a bicycle. So to the new government gang: please get some new cameras for the boys at the Licence Office.
Judging by the campaign promises to pay more attention to women’s rights, it’s probably already on the list, but we have to do something about the way women are being exploited in advertising. Every beer or motor car commercial has the obligatory voluptuous woman adorning the scene, sometimes leaning over enticingly, and it’s time the women’s groups pressure government to prevent this blatant sexism.
Even at boxing matches here between rounds we see a young woman in a swimsuit showing us the number of the next round. Admittedly it’s everywhere, not just Guyana, so that on the recent Mayweather/Pacquiao encounter, for instance, there were four busty women in bikinis in the ring during the proceedings. They just stood there displaying cleavage. They weren’t officiating, not keeping score, not handing the fighters water between rounds. Why were they there?
Why don’t we have four guys in swimming trunks also standing in the ring, during introductions, doing nothing? I must suggest to our boxing guru Peter Abdool that the next boxing event here should feature a male weightlifter in a bukta holding up cards for the rounds; give the ladies a break.
It’s completely off the subject, but I must pass this on regarding that Mayweather/Pacquaio bout. A friend wrote me to say that Mayweather should be given an award for the year’s best impersonation of Usain Bolt.
We have been swamped for the past few weeks, and particularly in the past few days, with the very pressing issue of election, and rightly so, and I can tell we’re all a little edgy, for various reasons, and could do with a few light moments to ease the pressure, so I hope this has been that.
