Dear Editor,
I think a response by the Police is necessary stemming from the publication of the letter ‘Answer the 911 phone’ in the last Sunday Stabroek. If the first line of help, pun intended, is not being answered, then this problem should be addressed.

I wasn’t even surprised as I read the letter as these behaviours from those who are entrusted with providing vital services to Guyanese fall short so very often in doing so.

The operator line 097 often rings out as well. There are many instances when I tried 097 for Directory Assistance but gave up and started searching through the pages of my Telephone Directory.
Hotline numbers posted on advertisements and other forms of the media, many a time, do not work. It’s nothing new.

The occurrences remind us from time to time that we live in a place call Guyana. There are many time, just for the same purpose (to find out if these services work), I dialled 911, and it rang out as well. Sometimes it would take a while for someone to answer.
We do understand these services are provided by human beings, who have limited abilities at times, but that’s not to say that the service will always be ineffective.
A helpline such as 911 should be taken very seriously especially in these times of high criminal activity in Guyana and these times of lengthy blackouts. Crime is everywhere and it can happen to anyone at anytime especially during blackouts.

As for the annoying TV ad that we’ve been seeing for weeks to tell us about prank calls to 911, I think it’s ridiculous—not the prank calls but this ad itself.

Why have the authorities gone to such lengths as to put out an ad that has been airing for weeks everywhere you turn to tell us not to prank-call 911? Prank calls to these agencies such as the police are nothing new. It has been around ever since. Even live TV call-in programmes have their share.

There is little we can do to curb prank calls except to have these persons identified by caller identification and possibly warned or even charged (this may require legislation of some sort).
But there isn’t much we can do about prank callers calling TV stations, 911 and the like. Does that mean we will stop answering our phones?

A simple statement over a short period of time would’ve been more appropriate.
But as the writer in the Sunday Stabroek stated, the police only keep making excuse after excuse. What a waste of taxpayers’ monies—this ad!
Yours faithfully,
Leon Jameson Suseran