Keeping up… people’s Government

Your Eyewitness is pretty chuffed about our Government’s clear determination to drag us into the 21st century when we clearly seem determined to remain in the 19th century!! Yes… 19th century!! When you look at the filth and floods in our capital city whenever there’s a heavy downpour, your Eyewitness can only think of 19th-century London – described by Charles Dickens in those books of starving young lads like the Artful Dodger and Oliver Twist!! So here we have the Government taking responsibility for cleaning the aforementioned filthy streets – over protestations by the local power brokers!! Your Eyewitness remembers old folks saying, “After a few minutes in a latrine, you get used to the smell – and can even read your newspapers!!”
Well, the other Government intervention is that $100,000 cash grant in which they aren’t following Sanction Man’s practice to hand it out in green $5000 notes!! After all, they aren’t sanctioned like that worthy – and also know that while money makes the world go round – when it’s denominated digitally and placed in bank accounts or “electronic wallets” – the money goes around faster – and takes the world along with it!! So, the Government created this “portal” which you have to enter electronically; submit your identification details, and PRESTO, the money will be deposited into the bank account you enter!!
Save for your Eyewitness, it hasn’t been a “PRESTO” experience!! Over the last three days, he’s made at least THIRTY attempts but has still not reached the stage to even offer up his bank account details!! The last one was just before starting this piece, and he was informed rather politely, “You are in line; thank you for your patience… Your estimated wait time is 22 minutes.” At the end of that time it told me if I had an account – which I had by then – I could log in. I did and was told (politely) there’s now another 26-minute waiting time!! He’s been caught in this time loop before – and he’s decided after the third iteration to call it quits!!
Then informed by PM Phillips that we all have to get our e-ID card, your Eyewitness had rushed over to the “Government office” established in his region. He was taken aback by the number of persons ahead of him – because most of them seemed to him to be Guyanese from forrin!! How did he know?? It was so easy with their fake American accents that every now and then lapsed into good, old-fashioned “bruk-up”!! Imagine their gall to act uppity when we all know they were rushing back to collect IDs to collect cash grants!!
Anyhow, with all the hiccups, your Eyewitness knows – and appreciates – that the Government’s following Spike Lee’s advice to “do the right thing”!!

…with the Iran War
Your Eyewitness stayed up the other night to listen to President Trump’s televised address on his plans for ending the Iran war!! It wasn’t just a matter of getting grist for this mill he’s presently turning – because he got skin in the game due to the (rising) prices of gasoline at the pumps!! So, what did the Big Guy say?? Well, he speaks in a register of his own, so you always have to read between the lines.
With your Eyewitness’ concern about when the war was gonna end, he has to parse Trump’s overt assertion that it would take “another two to three weeks” – during which he’d blow Iran back into the Stone Age!! Now this appeared pretty clear, didn’t it?? But then the President took it upon himself to give us (excruciating!) details of American fatalities in all the wars from WWI to Iraq – plus the length of the wars!!
They all lasted for years. Was he saying this might follow suit??

…with boundaries
The US Ambassador says her country’s gonna bring Guyana and Venezuela together to “negotiate” our maritime boundary after the (favourable) ICJ’s decision!! What’s to negotiate?? If the land border’s set, doesn’t the maritime border follow UNCLOS rules??