Dear Editor,
Mashramani has come and gone and you will be surprised to learn that, for me, it was an extremely peaceful day. But that was only because we evacuated our Irving Street home as day after day we watched in a vacant lot next to us the building of stages, bars, and a scaffold tower – home for gigantic boom boxes – all compliments of Banks DIH. Each time this corporation sets up shop next to our home, everything gets bigger. Profits must be up.
We did not stay to suffer the corporation’s illegal noise pollution. Suffice it to say that had I set up a stereo system even half the size right smack beside the home of chairman and managing director of Banks DIH, Mr Clifford Reis, he would have called the police immediately and they would have, quite rightly, charged me for breaking the law.
In Guyana, however, we are not equal under the law. Private sector giants like Banks DIH can openly flout the law and are allowed to by both the Mayor & City Council and the Government of Guyana. Both these national institutions also show total disregard for various laws and regulations including Section 175 of the Summary Jurisdiction (Offences) Act which makes it a crime to produce any noise which is so loud, continuous or repetitive as to cause a nuisance.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s guidelines “exposure to sounds louder than 80dB is hazardous to hearing. Even brief sounds louder than 140dB may cause pain and permanent hearing loss.” The Guyana National Bureau of Standards Guidelines for Noise Emissions recommend limits for residential areas to be 75dB during the day and to lessen to 60dB at night.
Mashramani embodies the flagrant disregard for the country’s laws, and the EPA and GNBS guidelines not only in the parade itself but all the satellite vendors who are allowed to emit illegal levels of music all day and night.
We returned home on Sunday morning to find vases and plant pots on tables had shifted, drinking glasses had shattered, and everything coated in a layer of dust that had been shaken loose from the ceiling because of the incessant pounding of the earthquake-like decibel levels of noise that had gone on for over eight hours.
Our home was built in 1970 and my father has lived there for 50 of his 93 years in relative peace and quiet until recently when the infringement of various laws has become yet another low for Guyana. We can either sell the house and move or continue to evacuate on Republic Day and Independence Day to avoid the illegal noise pollution.
Since the noise pollution gets worse each year, the house might well be unable to withstand the earth-shattering noise and might simply collapse one day. At that point we do not expect any one to care or to take responsibility.
The Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan recently made a big show of stamping out noise nuisances concentrating the campaign on bars, restaurants and mini buses etc., i.e., the small man. What powerlessness the Minister admits to when he can do absolutely nothing about his own government, the M&CC, corporate giants, and his own police force who stood about all Saturday amidst the illegal noise and did absolutely nothing!
I appear to be the only one writing about this issue but many suffer in silence because they have surrendered to Guyana’s hopelessness or else do not know how to access the media. Will anyone stand with me on this? This is not a partisan political matter. It affects many all across the country and perhaps a concerted effort would prove effective. Perhaps, it is time to take legal action. It should be an easily winnable case with video footage, decibel level measurements and recordings that can be blasted in the courtrooms to prove our case.
The media have not really supported this cause either and each Mashramani the newspapers and television screens show the revellers without ever mentioning the ear-splitting noise that accompanies them.
Perhaps, however, the media can be excused just now what with the government displaying total disregard for the Constitution and hurtling the country towards a constitutional crisis.
Yours faithfully,
Ryhaan Shah
