Opposition theatrics punishing grassroots people

‘COLLATERAL’ is how the joint Opposition described the ordinary citizens of this country, even their own supporters, who are adversely affected by their anti-developmental positions including budget cuts, non-support of the Anti-Money Laundering/Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Bill, et al. 

It is incalculable when one considers the grief, distress and dislocation of various financial transactional regimen that the joint Opposition is causing the grassroots people of the land; as well as the more privileged, including the private sector, which is no doubt redounding detrimentally on national growth poles.

The results of their multiplicity of anti-people, anti-developmental posturing is slowly but powerfully impacting on the national consciousness. Simple, formerly mundane financial transactions are becoming increasingly difficult as a result of the Opposition’s intractability – especially as it relates to their non-support of the AML/CFT Bill which, among other problematic impacts, is diminishing in various ways the disposable income of the ordinary man in the street. This is despite Government’s many efforts and interventions to allow Guyanese citizens greater latitude in spending power.

As one young man desirous of opening a new savings account in an effort to save enough for a down payment on a house discovered recently, the requirements for this simple transaction are so stringent and the acquisition of the various documentation so onerous that he nearly gave up in disgust; as have many other persons aspiring to open new bank accounts.
Many persons in the Diaspora support their elderly parents, children left behind, siblings and other relatives through remittances, but conducting these once-simple transactions have now become nightmarish procedures.
As an example, there is this elderly woman, who is sick and whose meals are provided by the Gafsons Group of Companies. She plants a kitchen garden, the produce of which – along with fruits she picks from her trees, funds her other simple needs, including purchasing her medication. She has been saving her Government pension (wrapped in a cloth purse she calls a ‘tiley’) for a day when she becomes too ill to fend for herself. Having been a housewife all her life she has never worked. Her husband and only son died in a crash many years ago, so she was left alone to fend for herself, which she did through the sale of the produce from her fruit trees and kitchen garden.
Alarmed at the increase of crime in her neighbourhood she wanted to open a Savings Account to keep her meagre savings from predators, including a drunken relative, but every bank she tried had the same requirements, which include but is not limited to having a job letter, two picture IDs (national ID and either passport or driver’s licence), and a TIN certificate.
Having never been employed in her life where would she get a job letter? How will she acquire a TIN certificate? She has never travelled and has no plans to so why is she supposed to acquire a passport? Why cannot a national ID be sufficient to conduct a financial transaction? What kind of money could a woman like her launder? And what terror could she cause anyone?
These preposterous impositions by the international community on the ordinary Guyanese citizen is akin to our nation losing its sovereignty; because it is by their diktat and their conditionalities that the lives of the Guyanese people have become difficult, despite our own Government’s attempts to cushion our survival systems.
Banks are being forced to turn away customers. They no longer serve as institutions to comfortably and readily facilitate the wealth-creation of the ordinary man or woman, and managers are no longer free to make unilateral decisions peculiar to the individual needs and constraints of their customers because they are forced to follow dictated and mandatory transactional procedures: Even the youngster who does odd jobs to save to fund a tertiary education is stymied by the difficulties currently being imposed on the ordinary people who want to open a simple Savings Account, all because of non-passage of the AML/CFT Bill – to what avail?
The Government is most likely being challenged in diverse ways to keep Guyana’s macro-economic fundamentals stable; and the private sector, termed Guyana’s engine of growth – if not immediately, then certainly in incremental stages, would be impeded in diverse ways by impediments now threatening commerce in Guyana through heavy energy costs (Amaila Falls imbroglio) and the myriad of ways the disposable income of the average Guyanese is being negatively impacted by non-passage of the AML/CFT Bill; as well as the vengeful budget cuts. The impacts will certainly be felt by the entrepreneurial community in a multiplicity of ways.
Can Guyana sustain and weather this steady derailment of its socio-economic constructs? Only time will tell; but the erosion has started. Some presidential aspirants, more particularly in the political Opposition, are negatively impacting Guyana’s growth poles by the intractable positions they assume on national issues that have international trading connotations.

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