…from rum
Over recent decades, DDL has earned a well-deserved reputation as a well-run Guyanese corporation in the liquor industry – where very high standards had been set by Banks DIH under Peter D’Aguiar. D’Aguiar, of course, famously made a foray into public life and politics based on an uncompromising anti-communist stance, and ended up with his UF party helping to usher in the PNC into power in 1964. Things didn’t end very well, and maybe that’s why D’Aguiar’s successors at Banks have since been comparatively low-keyed in the public arena.
DDL, on the other hand, became private only in the 1990s, as the sugar estates — each with their own distilleries – consolidated, and then there was one. Yesu Persaud, DDL’s first Chairman, became famously articulate on public matters even as he expanded and diversified DDL. He even made a foray into politics with GUARD during the “fight for free and fair elections” era.
Now, your Eyewitness is of the firm opinion that business execs should speak their minds publicly – and not only through their associations, such as the Private Sector Commission. Capitalism, or Private Enterprise as it was rebranded, was always driven by individuals who could rise about the herd. There were Rockefeller and Vanderbilt in the 19th century and more recently, there have been Stephen Jobs and Bill Gates; reticent they were not!! Businessmen have to know the public.
But with Yesu Persaud’s retirement in 2014, his successor, Komal Samaroo, appeared ready to replicate the earlier withdrawal of Banks’ Execs from public commentary in defence of what politician after politician have bigged up as “the engine of growth”. Even as the engine sputtered here!! So your Eyewitness was pleasantly surprised when he saw a report in the Chronic that Samaroo declared there was “too much negative energy…saturating national discourse at a time when Guyana’s future has never been better.”
What made his comment even more newsworthy was that, at the same time, DDL announced it was importing molasses from Nicaragua to produce its major product – rum!!
Any ordinary business exec would’ve been questioning why the sugar factories were shut down – not because 5700 workers were thrown onto the streets, of course, but about screwing their molasses customers royally!
…the future of boys
Seems — like Dickens prognosticated two centuries ago — it was “the best of times; it was the worst of times”. In the midst of news that one tyke had actually scored – for the very first time — a perfect score in the NGSA, came two downers. First: that while scores on English rose marginally, Math plunged precipitately. Whatever happened to those specialists the Ministry of Education had hired a few years ago to fix the Math jinx??
Then came the even more shocking news that after all the agony of preparing for the NGSA, kids were dropping out of secondary school even faster than flies! 47% boys and 57% girls from the 14,000 plus annual cohort who usually write the NGSA will not complete high school!! Now it doesn’t take a soothsayer to tell us that this is unacceptable.
So, what’s Minister Henry gonna do ‘bout it?
…on “improper purposes”
The CCJ will be explaining, in their soon-to-be-announced judgement, how you can know when cross-dressing is done “for an improper purpose” — which is ILLEGAL.
When they hang out near St George’s Cathedral??
