Crime and its contribution to inequitable development
Dear Editor,
Over the last year one continued to read of the many murders under Home Affairs Minister Mr. Clement Rohee’s watch. A number of businessmen have been crushed by the bullets of criminals while Rohee has occupied the seat. Yet this PPP Government has the audacity to lecture the nation about creating a “robust environment for business”?
In an article out of the World Bank called “Inequality and violent crime”, the authors advanced the position that income inequality has a significant and positive effect on the incidence of crime. Can Mr. Rohee and his colleagues in the PPP expect social harmony in an environment where a handful of PPPites continue to “get richer fast” while the rest of the nation (including former soldiers and policemen) continue to suffer from economic deprivation as a result of poor public polices from the PPP?
How can it be possible that only a handful of people, mostly aligned to the PPP, can leverage the billion-dollar deals, while the rest of the nation have to etch out a living on wages range from G$55,000-G$75,000 a month, sometimes even less, in the case of security guards?
To further compound this economic oppression, a family of four can barely get by on G$80,000 per month according to a survey conducted by Red Thread and the workers union, GPSU.
Now I am not condoning crime, actually I personally reject these criminals who continue to harm our people, but we must all acknowledge that there is a genesis to these conditions of high crime, and much of it has to do with the way the country is being mismanaged.
What is even worse is that crime in Guyana is not only being conducted by the likes of Rondell Rawlins but by some of those same persons who continue to orchestrate these billion-dollar deals that plunder the patrimony of the people. These white collar criminals commit a crime every day and call it national development.
The taxpayers continue to be saddled with a humongous debt in exchange for pieces of equipment and buildings that are clearly not value for money – case in point the Skeldon Sugar Factory. But these deals are not about value for money. These deals are about who head to the Bank after the deals.
This is the deeper issue behind why well trained men continue to walk around Guyana with AK-47s believing they are Freedom Fighters and not criminals; robbing and killing our people. This crime wave will not stop until there is some serious acknowledgement that we have got a social cohesion problem and a competent head to the security sector is appointed to lead on the process to bring this war to a manageable level. Clearly Minister Rohee is not competent enough to lead this process. A war has to be declared not only against the blue collar criminals but also the white collar criminals.
Criminals are criminals, regardless of whether they are of the white or blue collar variety.
Until the President recognizes that crime is the number one developmental retardant, whether it is blue or white, and then takes the necessary strategic measures, we’ve got a problem. How tough is that for the PPP to understand?
We have two choices; stand with the PPP in defending the white collar criminals, while labeling just the blue collar ones as the problem or launch a national struggle to save the Guyanese nation billions from those crooked deals, so that more money can be pumped into professionalizing a police force to win the war against those who aim to take the lives of innocent citizens.
Sasenarine Singh