Dear Editor,
Wednesday, February 2, dawned like any other ordinary day – birds singing, sun shining and a gentle cooling breeze blowing. Within the hour of waking while having coffee, our world was plunged into one of horror, disbelief and sadness. We received a call from the distressed wife of our gardener ‘Jai,’ a retired groundsman, telling us that he was struck down on his way to work by a hit and run driver at about 5.30 am on Sherriff Street, just by the government school and opposite Jus Water, and that he was in hospital in the IC unit. She told us that he was left for some 30 minutes lying in the road until an ambulance eventually came. No one stopped to render assistance to a fellow human being.
Later that morning we stopped to buy the papers, another ordinary thing in my sister and my day. The headlines in the Kaieteur read ‘Each cost $295,000’ – incredible I thought, a computer costing so much and 90,000 people are going to get them? And the Stabroek News ‘Long awaited landfill opens – Le Repentir dump finally closes,’ Hooray! At last something that we citizens have been waiting for, for a long time. Turning the pages more stories of carnage on our roads. ‘Victoria man killed in car accident – girl 7 in hospital’; ‘Minibus passenger dies in crash…’ Every day people are being killed on our roads by speeding cars, buses, minibuses, motorcycles, and all for a few extra minutes. Our roads are not built for speed; they are narrow, they have many unexpected bumps and potholes that cause drivers to lose control, and to compound the problem we have too many cars for the miles of roads available.
You may well ask what has this got to do with laptops that cost $295,000 (since corrected by the Minister to a more realistic price of $295!), but even at this price it is a waste of taxpayers’ money. The people who need computers and the kind of money being spent on the laptop project, are the police. They need to be able to tap into a computer in their patrol cars and at police station and find the relevant information about any motorist, vehicle or citizen like any modern society that our President likes to talk about. Visit any police station and it’s like going back in time with the mountains of paper and books gathering dust and not a computer in sight. Just think how computers could lighten the load of the police; for a start there would not be so many spelling and grammatical mistakes in statements written and they could help solve the many crimes committed in this country. If the President wishes to build this modern society where young people have access to computers, put desktop computers in schools, community centres, churches, mandirs, mosques – anywhere people gather and teach them. How is the President going to stop these laptops being used to view porn in the homes where there are young children?
Jai is in hospital fighting for his life with severe head injuries; his family is devastated; we are sad that a good man who had become our friend and was helping my sister establish a garden for the residents of the Archer Home will perhaps not live, or if he does, his brain will be so injured he cannot lead a normal life. Maybe if we had a modern Police Force, the perpetrator of this terrible crime would be in custody. I am asking through this newspaper that if anyone saw anything or witnessed the accident they should please contact the police. Jai is not a dog or a cat, he is a human being. It could be you lying fighting for your life.
Yours faithfully,
Rachel Hibbin
