January 18, 2017 issue

Readers' Response

Charge of partisanship on the part
of the GPS

Dear Editor:
Whilst currently in Trinidad and Tobago I need to obtain urgently police clearance from the Guyana Police Service (GPS) for my wife and myself. After we followed the procedure advised for this by the Guyana Consulate in Trinidad, a niece in Georgetown duly paid the required fee and applied with the prescribed information to CID on our behalf.
We were informed more than once that the normal processing time for such applications was five days. The applications were lodged on December 30, 2016 and we were advised that collection could be done on January 9, 2017 a matter of about six working days; but on that date my niece was advised to return one week later. The reason for the prolonged delay given by the CID officer was that the printer was not working.
This has the appearance of an act of discrimination against me, and my family by association. We are denied the normal time entitlement allotted other citizens for the processing of the documentation, and this, based on a failure of the internal functioning of the CID operation. There is no apology for the obvious inconvenience, and it all seems a cavalier and flimsy excuse. Further, it has all the hallmarks of contrived, petty victimisation harking back to the February 2016 incident when delivery of the Walter Rodney CoI report was delayed to the President because, amongst other things, ink for printing the report had run out. This is the larger issue at stake and the reason why this otherwise preposterous statement by the CID section or officer concerned is noteworthy. In February last, the Attorney General, Basil Williams, in a public statement gave the distinct impression that the Inquiry Commissioners were responsible for the trite matter of printing ink when in fact the depleted ink was the responsibility of the CoI secretariat, under the purview of a Minister.
On this occasion any enquiry at the CID section concerned, or examination of the police clearance document, would show that that document is pre-printed and can be completed manually by the officer concerned. Any claim of an out-of-order printer seems far-fetched and simply for the purpose of creating a round of tit-for-tat against me. The Rodney CoI report itself highlighted the need for a highly professional Guyana Police Force. In any event if the Granger regime is to recommit to the challenge of taking Guyana forward, the state must foster a Police Force as a whole which fights shy of any act of partisanship.
This act by the police should cease immediately, and ought to be condemned outright.
Donald Rodney via email
 
Negative response to law school
idea in Guyana
Dear Editor:
The move by the government to set up a law school in Guyana seems to be getting a negative response from top lawyers in the diaspora. One of them who is based in London said, “This is madness beyond comprehension. It is myopic thinking. The demand for legal education has fallen with the collapse of world economy”. Another wrote, “There would be little or no cross fertilization of ideas. Caribbean students would not want to attend law school in Guyana. The Guyanese students who attend would receive a parochial legal education and the Guyana economy would not be able to absorb them.”
My view is that Guyana has enough lawyers and moreover Guyana has a quota of 25 every two years to attend the Hugh Wooding Law School. The country needs engineers, scientists, accountants, doctors and specialists in fields other than law. The medical school in Guyana had a shaky start, but bounced back and produced several recognized specialists, but I was informed that it has lost its accreditation, but it is working to regain it. The authorities should concentrate in this important area rather move into a new venture.
It is true that scores of LLB graduates are waiting to gain admission to the law schools. Belizian students who gained their LLB degrees at the University of Guyana do not automatically gain entry to the Norman Manley Law School because of the limited space, in addition to which they are required to write an entry examination. Jamaican students also have to wait quite some time to gain entry, and a few years ago the then Principal of the Norman Manley Law School, Stephen Vascianne advocated a double shift in order to facilitate the students.
The terms of the MOU have not been released, and at this point it is not known if the government is contributing financially to the project, and if so to what extent.
What is known is that an outside agency is setting up the school with permission from the government. The Advisor of the Law School venture spoke of specialization in areas such as Environmental Law, Intellectual Property, Civil Aviation, Maritime Law and Tax Law. He also touched on the important area of continuing education.
Continuing legal education is being encouraged in all the districts in the United States and the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) has embarked on judicial education and President Sir Denis Byron said that he will do everything possible to assist in the furtherance of judicial education in the region.
Oscar Ramjeet via email
 
Why is commonsense and reason
being ignored?
Dear Editor:
The Trinidad society has become so polarized that one is virtually required to have and voice an opinion on every conceivable matter. One has to be either for or against the OWTU, and, of course, the easy decision is to go with the crowd.
Genuine, impartial reflection on the issues is not a requirement.
Public shaming has become the order of the day with little regard for the rights of individuals to make their own decisions.
Just look at what happens when the police actually arrest someone for a crime – people who have nothing better to do mob the arrestee on the way to the court, no consideration given to the principle of innocent until proven guilty.
But among the baying crowd comes one voice of reason in the person of a former Minister of Energy, who, unlike another of her erstwhile colleagues, did not simply parrot the popular line, but applied commonsense and reason to the situation. She contends that it is unfair to “ask the workers to take the burden only for the inefficiencies at Petrotrin “.
This is the very contention of the OWTU. The bad management and financial decisions of the executive team is what has the company in its present crisis. Until something is done to correct this severe shortcoming the problems that strangle development at Petrotrin, and all other state enterprises, will not be overcome.
Prime Minister, the ball is in your court!
Karan Mahabirsingh. Carapichaima, T&T
 
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