Dear Editor,
It continues to irritate me when I read stories like the one relating to an SUV which is allegedly using a false number plate and is able to get away with it because the owner is a powerful government contractor. Then there is the story of a senior Customs official who allegedly allows himself a duty-free concession on a personal vehicle.
My wife and I returned to Guyana one year ago and did all we were supposed to do to qualify for duty-free access of our personal effects. Our biggest disappointment was the denial of the duty-free purchase of vehicles for herself and me after being given the word of the Ministry which deals with returning persons that we were eligible to do so after submitting a quotation from any local dealership.
At our Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) interview a couple of weeks later we were told that there was a temporary hold on the purchase of duty-free vehicles to re-migrants and that if we knew the Minister we could have a word to see if it would be possible to make a special ruling. I called on the office of the Minister who was out of the country and was told that he will be informed upon his return and that I will be contacted. Of course, this never happened so I wrote him a letter which I took in personally and of course got no reply and of course we are still without the convenience of vehicles.
Editor, in 1973 I returned to Guyana from London, England and my effects arrived at Bookers Shipping and were released in ‘labba’ time with nothing but shipping cost paid. Not so in 2016; it not only took almost six weeks of running between GRA and the Customs officers at the Laparkan location, but they did a detailed search and made me pay $18,000 for a handful of pantry items and personal used clothing which were all bundled together and listed as personal effects.
I am convinced that the ‘Return Home’ call is merely a political gimmick which applies to a chosen few.
I keep being told that I was away too long (10 years) and have forgotten how things work here. Well I hasten to say I have not forgotten, but merely expected that they had improved.
The system here is so riddled with corruption that there is a special system of persons who appear look over the shoulders of others to see who is cheating, and this necessitates miles of paperwork and hours of time lost to achieve simple tasks for which there are technological solutions through computerization. This, I am also told, does not work in Guyana as the people are smarter that any program the experts can write.
Guyana is indeed a country which has not benefited in any significant way from technology and sadly lags in social graces, simple decencies and the understanding of what it means to be professional.
Until government gets the little things right the bigger ones will continue fail, due to the incompetence of persons without vision and a proper understanding of what is required to be successful.
Hopefully someone, some day will come along and get it right.
A friend recently told me what Guyana needs is a “Defining Moment”, one that will force us out of this backward attitude and catapult us into reality.
Yours faithfully,
Bernard Ramsay