Dear Editor,
I wish to comment on a report about the conditions in Stevedore and Postel Housing Scheme based on a letter sent to your newspaper by the Guyana Water Inc (‘GWI cannot access Stevedore alleyway to clean transmission chamber because city council has not cleared it,’ 21.5.08).
A few years ago the residents in the community weeded the parapets, cleared all those drains and installed street lights through a privately funded initiative. (Your newspaper covered this initiative and carried relevant photographs.) Subsequently City Hall funded a working group drawn from the community to continue to clean and clear the drains. In the meantime, efforts were made to have the less than one mile of roads resurfaced. The roads are in a deplorable condition and in some parts are impassable; some taxi services have stopped serving the community.
The community development group urged city officials and the utilities concerned to be involved in the maintenance of the roads, parapets and the verges as this increases the efficiency of the services provided by the utilities. Unfortunately not much has happened in that regard, but let me point out that while the Guyana Water Inc has been effective in placing new pipelines in the area, the roads were left in worse condition than GWI found them after that pipe-laying exercise. This is not to say that GWI did not effect some repairs, but not to the satisfaction of several members of the community.
So some residents of the community made a private lobby of President Jagdeo and subsequently a community meeting was held with Deputy Mayor Robert Williams and Mrs Philomena Sahoye-Shury. A renewed call was made to have the roads repaired and the drains cleared. So far there has been no movement.
Since GWI has raised the matter of the necessity to have our environment maintained so that the services of our utilities can be maintained and residents can enjoy an acceptable standard of living and quality of life, I wish to make a recommendation.
If the figure of $513,580,000 listed as revised funds (for Financial Year 2007) garnered from the environmental tax in the National Budget is correct, then I recommend that a small percentage of that sum goes toward the restoration of the roads and the maintenance of the verges and parapets in the Stevedore Postel Housing Scheme. In fact a large percentage of those funds should be used for that purpose in all the communities across the country.
Right now it is unclear where this half a billion dollar windfall from the environmental tax goes and whether, as was intended by the act that brought it into force, the money really goes back into ensuring that our communities are kept in an environmentally friendly state.
The allocation of the funds could then provide employment to persons in those areas who would be responsible for the services sorely needed.
And while we are at it, in the case of Stevedore in particular the roads could be done and done properly too, or else people may have to drive on the parapets.
Yours faithfully,
Enrico Woolford
