Dear Editor,
Please refer to an SN article dated March 3 captioned, ‘Activities already planned for Cummings Lodge multi-purpose building.’ As I explained about two weeks ago in a letter to this newspaper, this centre will not benefit any resident of Cummings Lodge, and lo and behold, this was exposed in the article mentioned above. A Sophia resident, Eugene Lewis, explained in the article that she is in charge of the centre and highlighted some of the planned activities. She also gave a lame excuse for the name that was given to the building, saying it was located in Cummings Park, which is a part of Cummings Lodge. How can an area located in the middle of Sophia be a part of Cummings Lodge? Maybe Kingston in our Georgetown is part of Jamaica. If any resident of Cummings Lodge was consulted this would have never happened.
An article in the Guyana Chronicle of February 14 reporting on the commissioning of this building stated that it was located in Area ‘C’ Cummings Lodge. This followed the previous afternoon’s VOG news report that the $29.5M centre will benefit the residents of Cummings Lodge. This is the government trying to hit two birds with one stone. Providing for Sophia and then fooling the Cummings Lodge residents in the state media that it was meant for them. They know that the majority of their supporters just want to know that money is spent in the country and their votes are guaranteed even if these very supporters continue to live in poverty.
I call on the residents of Cummings Lodge first of all to wake up and smell the coffee and then to demand that our village’s name be removed from this building. We must then be alert and voice our disapproval when the government tries to use propaganda to fool us to vote for them. We want to see progress in our village rather than hear about it. We want good roads, a market, clean drains, working street lights, a playground, a steady supply of potable water. We never had any of the above and the residents must take some of the blame.
Yours faithfully,
R M Khan