The Story Within The Story… Those ‘airport’ robberies, salary increases and ‘free and open-source’ software

By Leonard Gildarie, October 11, 2015 | By KNews | Filed Under Peeping Tom, Source

I missed last week as I was travelling back from US after covering the UN General Assembly in Manhattan.

I was glad to come back home. The weather in New York moved from being quite cool to suddenly being nasty. Fall, it appeared, was over and winter has started to step in. I hated it.

I came home to news that the new Government had decided on raising salaries for Ministers and all Members of Parliament.

Bad move. Period. Politically, I believe the administration will not hear the end of it.

Things are not doing well as far as commerce is concerned. Ask any man on the street.

The business folks will tell you the business is bad. People, it appears, are holding onto their money.

Miners and the underground economy, in the face of low gold prices and a number of spectacular drug busts, are spending less.

With assessments and audits currently being conducted to determine the health of the state agencies, critics have been saying that the timing is bad. The administration should have waited.

People are upset. Especially the public servants.

Good governance would dictate that any administration would strive to ensure there are no perceptions of excesses.

It would be a poor argument that the hike is to reduce corruption because our office holders are poorly paid. How much do you pay someone to not be corrupt? The number of letters to the editors and comments on the social websites would speak volumes.

We also noticed the worrying reports of persons being robbed after coming off the planes at the Cheddi International Airport.

It is a traumatic experience for the victims. It has been happening over the years. It appears that there is a dramatic increase in the frequency.

There are a few theories. Someone (maybe more) seems to be collaborating with criminal elements. Or it could be that families talk and someone with bad intentions heard. Or it could be the bandits are casing out arriving passengers.

The fact remains is that Guyana is getting a bad name.

In New York, the biggest fear of Guyanese living there when they talk about visiting, is the crime situation.

It is a stupid problem that damage what could be a potentially large tourism market in the US. We have more than 300,000 Guyanese living in the New York area. More are scattered throughout the other states.

We are also seeing a growing debate over what is called free and open-source software (FOSS).

I lately learnt about it.

FOSS is a computer software that can be classified as both free software and open-source software. Persons are licensed, for free, to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source code is openly shared so that people are encouraged to voluntarily improve the design of the software. This is in contrast to proprietary software, where the software is under restrictive copyright and the source code is usually hidden from the users.

We have been spending tens of millions of dollars to use software in the ministries and government offices that are vulnerable to attacks and unstable.

We have many bright folks here in Guyana. We can save a bunch of money. We need to ask advice.