Dear Editor,
The equivalent of a manmade natural disaster has just begun here in Guyana. The exposures and excesses will occupy the attention and fascination of this stunned nation for all of the next two years. There are no shortcuts, as there is just too much brigandage to uncover that has bedevilled this society for the last two decades.
The skeletons have to be exhumed one by one from their unmarked graves; things will get worse before there can be any thought of them getting better.
Now those faceless, conscienceless apologists, regardless of ethnicity and fidelity, who used to excuse the venality, indeed, the criminality, with “Wha is ah lil teefing?” and “Corruption deh aal ovah de place” can keep on fooling themselves and defrauding what remains of character.
As they do so, it should be remembered that there is no such thing as free money. All those countless extravagances, involving Consolidated Fund overdraft and high-priced journalism, among other malfeasances, will have to be made good somehow. As an aside, it is astonishing how some folks face the paying public, given their unending capitalizing on the largesse of the same taxpayers, once held hostage. These are the same good people who write drivel about character and integrity with one hand, while loading up suitcases of cash with the other.
Clearly, there is an incalculable degree of shamelessness saturating this cesspool of a society; a cesspool overflowing with greed and duplicity at the feet and rising to the eyeballs to immerse, if one is not careful. Where is the limit to this lawlessness?
Like I said, there is worse to come in the next two years. The new government has to find the holes first, then determine how deep they really are, and then dig itself (and the rest of us with it) from the bottom of the bottom. This is going to be hard going, and it is merely the beginning.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
