They were laughing at me at the Pegasus

The time was 13.00 hours last Sunday. The place was the Pegasus Hotel. The occasion was the completion of a budget symposium in which Chris Ram and Anand Goolsarran gave excellent analyses of the 2013 budget. These were followed by legal adumbrations by Khemraj Ramjattan of what can be done to stop the Ministry of Finance violating certain laws pertaining to governmental spending. I think Anand Goolsarran has a good political future. It was time to leave and AFC remigrant, Raymond Halls, invited four of us to have lunch at the poolside. My initial reaction was to eat at some Creole restaurant where we would spend less. But Raymond turned to me and said, “Freddie I am patronizing the Pegasus because I want to support Mr. Robert Badal, so you can wait outside for us while we eat. That was the end of the matter. I was going to have my lunch at the Pegasus. The other three persons were AFC photographer, Ivan Bentham; AFC executive Michael Carrington and the current chairman of the People’s Parliament, Leonard Craig. We spent a prolonged period over lunch taking about how empty the budget is for the poorer classes. As one topic followed another, I said something that caused immense laughter among those seated at the table. Raymond Hall was laughing continuously; Michael Carrington kept grinning while looking at me. Ivan Bentham kept staring at me, cynically, with a huge smile trying to tell me that I was talking nonsense. The exception was Leonard Craig. He was totally unsettled. He grinned, he smiled, he laughed, he got out of his seat, he sat down again, he put his face into his palms, he banged his forehead on the table, he went into my face telling me that what I was saying about Guyana was unbelievable and that it was too bizarre for him to believe. All eyes around the table were on Craig. His expression was one in which shock met hilarity into a confluence of psychological torture. So what did I say to cause such a tempestuous wave of emotions around that lunch table? I told them that a meter-reader of GPL gets twenty dollars to read a meter. Craig jumped up and said, “You mean twenty American dollars?” Ivan Bentham who sat next to me, looked at me and intoned; “It has to be more than twenty American dollars.” Carrington was still in his permanent grin saying, “Ya’ll worry with Freddie.” By this time, Raymond Hall was still in the throes of laughter but asked me how much was the actual figure. You know I have a big voice so I loudly exclaimed that GPL pays meter-readers twenty Guyana dollars to read each meter. All hell broke loose around the table. It was time to prove it. My invitation was that we go into my car and drive around Georgetown and its environs and stop at the home of meter-readers we all know. That would not be a problem for me because I know a few and that is how I became aware of the $20 Guyana absurdity. Raymond Hall decided he will call his son and ask him to get the information. His son did not answer. It was now time to call a meter-reader. My cell phone does not have speaker system, so we used Raymond’s Blackberry and put it on speaker so everyone around the table can hear. Here now are the facts as coming from the voice of a meter-reader. A GPL meter-reader starts at eighteen Guyana dollars and if he consistently brings in over eighteen hundred readings a month, he gets four Guyana dollars more. So the rate begins at $18 and stops at $22. Here now were the reactions around the table. Ivan Bentham sat in cold silence. Raymond Hall said the first thing he is going to tell his girlfriend when he saw her later in the afternoon was this absurdity about Guyana. Michael Carrington expressed condolences for the meter-readers because he said that for such a pittance they have to walk long distances. I was laughing because I knew a long time ago that Guyana is a failed state. Again it was Leonard Craig who proved to be the exception. Craig has my complexion but his face was a whiter shade of pale. I thought it was $20 but in fact it is $18. People will read about this incredible jumbie reality in this country and do nothing about it. Twenty years from now, the pay will still be monopoly money for GPL meter-readers. Guyana died a long time ago.