Dear Editor,
I make reference to the article titled `GRA says has taken steps to address coronavirus threat’ that was carried by SN, instant. The said article states inter alia “the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) is assuring the general public that the Authority under advice from the Ministry of Public Health (MPH), has implemented and will continue to improve the necessary precautions so as to maintain a safe and healthy work environment for both its staff and taxpayers who do business at its various offices”.
Editor, I beg to differ. The measures that GRA has in place with respect to the number of persons that are accessing its services will not provide “a safe and healthy work environment”. It will not; neither for its employees nor its customers.
I visited GRA to conduct business on March 17 at about 1.00 pm on the ground floor, and estimated that there were no less than 100 persons conducting business of sorts sitting, standing and in several queues on various counters. Given the global strategy of limiting “social distancing”, reducing person-to-person contacts and minimizing size of assemblies as a mean to contain or curb the spread of the COVID 19 virus, having an assembly of this number of persons, excluding employees, on the ground floor alone will only facilitate the spreading of this virus if anyone in this crowd is a carrier of it.
I think GRA needs to immediately review the optimum number of persons, with appropriate advice from MPH that should be in its building at any one time; even it means taking batches of customers at a time. I am sharing this observation and suggestion as a responsible citizen in a collective effort to combat this invisible global threat.
Yours faithfully,
Jai Petam
