MAINTENANCE of law, order, and strong institutions is inextricably linked to indissoluble development. Every country, in every epoch, where there is a break down of law and order, citizens live with unrealised potential and unattained developmental possibilities, while those that have advanced have done so in tandem with (or driven by) adherence to law, order and good governance.
Collective values shape the culture of any society. I am of the firm view that over the last two to three decades, Guyana has slipped into an insidious culture of lawlessness.
Two analytical reasons may be advanced, one: our values and attitudes changed faster than the willingness or capacity of lawmakers to review old and introduce new statutes to meet the moment; and two, it may be that the political elite may have deliberately allowed certain legal regiments to deteriorate so that they can capitalise on the lack of checks and balances.
In that scenario, when systems break down, the politician becomes the central object of law(s), he says what is or isn’t permissible, who gets what and who goes where. In such a setting, persons are allowed to escape legal scrutiny because they know ruling politicians or have “lines” in the law administration and enforcement sector.
This is a country where anyone can simply ‘knock-up’ any two pieces of old wood by the roadside, call it a stall and start vending. We have nightclubs, rum shops and drinking parlours situated in any section of any neighbourhood, just swing open their doors anytime they feel like and blare music at any decibel without the necessary permit and or licence. Any ‘lil’ youth man can ride a motorcycle, dodge in and out of traffic without helmet in full view of traffic ranks.
We open, in any neighbourhood, pig farms and chicken farms, machine shops, noisy production lines, spray painting shops, woodworking outfits, carwash bays, corner shops, etc… without environmental or other permits.
The country is littered with mechanic shops that have dozens of derelict vehicles lining the parapets encumbering the free flow of traffic for years with impunity. There are thousands of citizens across the country who just colonise portions of the government reserves for personal enjoyment without recourse of law.
Recently, Freddie Kissoon on his podcast griped about how much Banks DIH is encumbering the parapets at Thirst Park with impunity. He questioned why the authorities have not sought to curb it. With some degree of consternation, he contrasted this with the cases where poor vendors are chased from certain locations and the fact that Banks DIH itself took court action to compel City Hall to move vendors outside its establishment at Stabroek Square.
I argued that while I support the removal of the encumbrances at Thirst Park, I do not support the singling out or targeting of “Banks” or any other person. I cannot support any action taken in isolation of a well thought-out, economically sensitive, practical, systematic plan to curb the culture of illegal occupation and encumbrance of parapets across the country.
How do you advocate for City Hall to leave from its base, travel through the streets of Georgetown, go past the hundreds of permanent and makeshift encumbrances on every street of the city, only to end up at “Banks” to move a few traffic cones?
This would be selective enforcement of the law, and I do not support it. I also cannot support sporadic overnight flare-ups of vendor-removal drives, nor do I support these occasional police campaigns to enforce noise nuisance or operations to “pull-in” minibuses for violating public-transportation statutes or any temporary “clamp down” or enforcement action.
Many laws and ordinances have been routinely disregarded for such a long time that the lines between right and wrong are blurred; the current generation of youth can barely discern the differences. Violators are middle-class, working-class, impoverished, political elite, law enforcement and just about everyone. As a nation (government and people), we have to make some hard decisions.
I advocate a comprehensive national initiative to curb and reorient our value system with a view to thwart this culture of lawlessness that pervades every aspect of society. As a nation, the longer we dabble in this culture of non-adherence to existing institutional mechanisms and general law and order, the longer we spend on the benches of underdevelopment. This will be an uncomfortable but necessary process, but we must bite the bullet and endure it.
It requires political courage and national will to confront and defeat this beast; many who have benefitted from decades of lawlessness and believe they have attained the status of untouchable will resist, but that should not deter our resolve.
Otherwise, despite the blessings of new resources, Guyana will not cross that threshold between potential and actualisation. We cannot continue to vend anywhere we feel like or encumber any reserve or parapet we deem convenient, or alter public property deliberately unmindful of existing rules.
It would be remiss of me if I ended this article without mentioning a recent discussion I had with AG Nandlall. He mentioned a comprehensive review of a raft of laws for adoption before year’s end, that will address the contemporary challenges of all the issues I raised above. I look forward to these and urge that their rollout be linked to practical implementation programmes and directly interwoven with our development needs. Development not backed by a strong culture of maintaining law and order is easily reversible.