Dear Editor,
Although others have condemned the size of the compensation awarded by the Linden Commission of Enquiry (the Report uses the words "awarded" and "recommended" interchangeably), the travesty of justice becomes clearer if we break the figures down. This is a strategy Red Thread often uses: to break down large figures into what they mean for each household or individual per day: what is the Old Age Pension per day per recipient? Public Assistance? The minimum wage? The wages of domestic workers, security guards, shop assistants, cooks and cleaners in small restaurants? What can each wage buy? How does it compare to the cost of items of basic food? Of shelter? Of sending children to school? Of medicine? Of transport? Of utility bills? We started doing this because we were tired of the self-congratulating announcements of the millions of dollars in increases to various sectors of poor people. We were also tired of the opposition parties' willingness to discuss budgets only in terms of whether or not "macro-economic fundamentals are sound". We've previously quoted Wintress, a Red Thread member, who muttered as she was listening to a budget debate "But me micro-economic fundamentals not doing so good."
With Red Thread going to court regularly with women and children who are poor, we bear witness to the injustice that the justice system frequently metes out to those with less social power. Thus, unlike the opposition political parties, we were never excited about having a Commission of Enquiry, with or without "foreign" members; why would their "foreignness" make them any fairer to poor people? We listened without surprise to the condescension of some Commissioners during the proceedings. But in the most material way, the built-in injustice of the Commission of Enquiry was expressed in the size of the compensation the Commissioners awarded the families of Allan Lewis, Shemroy Bouyea and Ron Somerset. We're not sure that everyone has grasped the degree to which those awards trivialize the lives of the three men and the families they left behind.
It is possible that the zeroes on the number "million" are hiding the reality. We want to break down the figures so that the insult becomes more visible.
Let's estimate the number of years that each of the men might have lived in the normal course of things (that is, if they had not been murdered) by using the average male life expectancy. Let's use the uncontested figure published in 2010, which was 66.5 years:
- 46 year old Allan Lewis might have lived and earned an income for another 19.5 years, which would make the award of $3,000,000 the equivalent of $153,846 a year or $421 a day. With that amount, his mother can afford to buy herself two pints of rice and one pint of peas, or a half pound of milk and a two ounces of cheese, or a half pound of milk and three loose sausages from a corner shop.
- 24 year old Shemroy Bouyea, who might have lived for another 42.5 years, was valued at $133,333 per year or $365 a day. With that, his mother could buy a half pound of milk or a loaf of bread and two eggs. 18 year old Ron Somerset could have been expected to live another 48.5 years, which means that the award of $2,000,000 amounts to $41,237 per year or $113 per day. With that, his mother could afford two loose tennis rolls from a corner shop with $33 change or one pound of flour with $13 change. The lives and potential earning capacity of these three human beings were devalued to this level by men and women who were paid between G$14 million and G$16 million for a month's work, that is, between G$480,000 and G$540,000 for a six hour day.
On one side of the scale, lives found to be worth G$113 to G$421 a day; on the other, lives thought to be worth G$480,000 to G$540,000 a (six-hour) day. Even if the families decide to accept the awards because they need the money, this obscenity, which one of our local Commissioners sees as "adequate" compensation, cannot be allowed to stand.
Yours faithfully,
AndaiyeKaren de Souza
Halima Khan
Joy Marcus
For Red Thread
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