Dear Editor,
Your page thirteen article (Sunday Stabroek December 31, 2006) captioned: “Region Three community centre repairs complete”, caught my attention. It is always good when there are improvements in communities across Guyana. The criteria used to determine priority development projects however often come into question, as indeed they do in this particular instance.
A seldom, if ever used facility in Windsor Forest is rehabilitated at a cost of $2.6 million, while there are many other facilities which have been fenced and/or constructed at tremendous cost to taxpayers and have never been used. The following examples will suffice:
* Community centre ground at Tuschen fenced approximately five years ago.
* Abattoir constructed at Meten Meer Zorg more than five years ago.
* Grove Multi Purpose Centre (East Bank Esse-quibo) constructed more than a year ago at a cost of $10.9 million.
Meanwhile, the students and teachers of Vreed-en-Hoop Community High School were promised an improved school environment come January 1, 2007. They turned up, only to find that some of them will still have to report for school at 7:30 am under the same unbearable conditions which led them to engage in protest action during the last school term. This is their sad story even though the Regional Education Department’s capital expenditure programme 2006 would have been approved since July 2006.
It is the view of many that satisfying specific communities is of greater importance to the administration than addressing burning issues of grave importance to the cause of national development. I do recall engaging the Regional Chairman as well as the Regional Executive Officer on this matter. I also recall being given the assurance that we would have visited and worked collectively to resolve the difficulties related to the school. Sadly, on each occasion they both failed to meet as arranged. There was always another meeting or another visit of greater importance to the administration than the education of our young people. It is so sad, but also, so very true.
Yours faithfully,
Mervyn Williams, MP
