The Alliance For Change read with utter disbelief the statements attributed to Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon by which we were informed as a nation, that Cabinet had taken a conscious decision to purchase ‘pirated’ textbooks to be issued to schools.
The fact that the Cooperative Republic of Guyana would take a decision at the highest decision-making level of the executive, to accept and endorse a criminal behaviour is shocking.
The blatant disrespect for the intellectual property rights of other persons, sanctioned by the State must be condemned in the strongest possible terms.
To use the excuse of cost for the theft of intellectual property by third parties has now taken the good name of the Republic of Guyana to hitherto unknown depths of disgrace.
The decision of the Cabinet has now exposed the Republic of Guyana to ridicule, derision and contempt in the international arena.
The message to our authors, musicians, artists, poets and other keepers of the national consciousness is simply devastating.
It boggles the mind that shortly after we awarded a national honour to the outstanding Guyanese E.R Braithwaite who authored ‘To Sir with love’, the government of the day has given permission for authors’ works to be stolen.
The theft of intellectual property is the same as theft of any other property. In as much as it is a criminal act to steal the produce from a farmer or cattle from a herdsman, it is equally criminal to steal the work of an author after he would have laboured to create it and in turn to deprive such a person of their livelihood.
To know that the matter was discussed at the level of Cabinet, inclusive of the President of this country and that acting in unison, the Cabinet agreed to purchase ‘pirated’ photocopies of textbooks which do not belong to them and which they have not acquired the legal rights to reproduce, speaks to the level of lawlessness by which the PPPC government operates. Is this government now telling school aged children that it is appropriate to steal? Is the PPPC Government saying that being poor is an excuse for criminal behaviour? [END]
Editors’ Note
The Ministry of Education, Guyana invited companies to bid for the supply of primary and secondary level textbooks. The books that the firms were asked to bid for include titles from Oxford Press, Nelson Thornes, Pearson Education, Hodder Education and Royards and Caribbean Educational Publishing of Trinidad and Tobago. Guyana acceded to the World Intellectual Property Organisation, Paris Convention for the protection of Industrial Property and the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literacy and Artistic Works on October 25, 1994.
For more information see: http://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2012/09/13/bidding-document-requests-pirated-textbooks-for-education-ministry/
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