Here we are in the midst of what the international community’s calling a global “Tariff War”! It was launched by Pres Trump and made your poor Eyewitness’ eyes spin with all the intricacies of taxes – excise and otherwise, duties, tariffs! They all involve crunching numbers – which makes his brain spin!! But while that’s playing out – with doomsayers predicting another Great Depression in the making – we got another matter dealing with that tax called “duty” that’s applied in specific percentages to imported goods. And don’t ask your Eyewitness at this time to say how duty is different from tariff!!
Anyhow, all your Eyewitness can say about the local “duty” story is that it just proves the soundness of the old folk wisdom that warns: “All smart fly does end up in cow backside!!” And we know when THAT happens, the fly’s never gonna be able to get out of the stuff that’s excreted from that location!! So what’s the local “duty” story all about?? It concerns one wealthy businessman trying to evade the duty you gotta pay when you import vehicles into our dear Mudland. And yes, we know it’s a sore point since the said duties are so high we end up paying twice the price we paid to the folks in Japan – or wherever – for the USED cars we import!!
The sore point leads to all sorts of convulsions, convolutions and manipulations to avoid the said duties that’s collected by the GRA. From the moment a kid plops out from the mother’s womb, he learns about “duty free” and all the ways to attain that blessed status. So a few years ago, this wealthy businessman and his family brings in some real high-end vehicles – a Rolls Royce; a Lamborghini; 2 Land Cruisers and a Ferrari!! Yes…and who said you can get “concussions” driving on our roads – when people will bring in these US-million-dollar (or Guyanese-billion-dollar) low-slung vehicles??
Anyhow, SOMEHOW the vehicles cleared customs even though the duties – based on the costs – were underpaid to the GRA to the tune one GY$1.2Billion!! Clearly some hanky panky (surprise!!) went on with the customs officers who cleared the cars for some vastly smaller sum. In the usual scheme of things, nothing would’ve happened excepting for the “smart fly” syndrome. The wealthy businessman decided to use social media to ostentatiously flaunt his cars – and their value!!
And triggered an investigation by the GRA – where someone smelled a rat!! The businessman – who could’ve afforded to pay the duties with no sweat – tried to deflect by claiming “PPP govt persecution”!! He forgot that’s GRA’s standard operating procedure. Under APNU they’d seized vehicles from Ban Shin Lin – and regularly advertise auctions for seized vehicles!!
…to protect
To have a duty is to have the responsibility to do something specified. And when your Eyewitness reads about the continued bombing by Israel of Gaza – which daily adds dozens of killings to the over 50,000 Palestinians already murdered – he wonders not only about personal duty, but also about the UN’s DUTY to Protect against such killings. The Responsibility to Protect – known as R2P – was unanimously adopted in 2005 at the UN World Summit.
It seeks to ensure that the international community never again fails to halt the mass atrocity of crimes against humanity. The concept emerged in response to the failure of the international community to adequately respond to mass atrocities committed in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s. The International Committee on Intervention and State Sovereignty developed the concept of R2P during 2001.
A small nation like ours ultimately depends on the international institutions to prevent excesses – whether external as from Mad Maduro or internal from “political sophisticates”.
First they bombed the Palestinians…
…to observe democratic rules
The separation of powers is fundamental to our democratic order – checks and balances! The CJ took time to point out that ambiguities existing in our Constitutional structures on voters registration must be dealt with by the LEGISLATIVE BRANCH!!
