Engineer with the Ministry of Public Works and Communications Walter Willis yesterday said that the tower which was slated to be erected at the Plaisance/Industry Community Centre Ground for the government’s e-governance project will be sited elsewhere.
He made the disclosure to Stabroek News yesterday afternoon, even as Plaisance residents, who had not yet been informed of the decision, continued protest actions.
Since the news broke on Sunday, the decision to build the tower at the community centre ground has been strongly opposed by residents who began protest actions on Sunday, when they stopped ongoing works to the structure’s foundation, and continued picketing exercises on Tuesday and again yesterday. The residents said that they were not consulted about the project and that they would continue to bar the tower’s erection. After the interruption on Sunday, Willis halted all works and ordered the removal of the equipment and materials. He said that no further works would take place until the project coordinators had met with the residents.
He also maintained that worries about the threat of radiation affecting persons were unfounded. He noted that the towers to be built are similar to those built by the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company and Digicel, and that they pose no harm whatsoever. If anything, he said, the signal towers would pose less of a risk since they would be transmitting a weaker signal, relative to signals transmitted by Digicel and GT&T.
Yesterday, he stated that while a meeting had not yet been held with the residents, the project’s coordinators have considered the issue and have decided against erecting the tower on the ground. Willis stated that organizing a meeting has proved difficult because of the ongoing budget debate.
He said they were hoping to meet with the residents through the Works Ministry, but because of the budget debates, both Minister Robeson Benn and the Permanent Secretary were temporarily unavailable.
Willis added that alternative sites in the village of Plaisance are currently being examined to determine a suitable location to erect the tower. Placing a tower in the village is extremely important he said, primarily because of the village’s high population density. He said that a tower in the community will address the needs of a wide cross-section of people living along the Coast.
He said however that if a suitable site cannot be found in the village the tower would then have to be built at a location at Good Hope, East Coast Demerara.
It is expected that the news will be welcomed by residents who up to yesterday remained adamant in their opposition to the tower’s erection on the field.
Beryl Haynes, a longstanding resident of the community, had said “they have not had the common courtesy to consult the people on this matter.” Nevertheless, she added that “we are open to discussion; we are open to dialogue to see how best we can come to an amicable solution in relation to the problem. We are not against the technology. We are not against the country developing in the technological field. Our problem is we were not consulted. It’s like they’re running roughshod over us, you know? They come and take it and there is nothing we can do about it, you know?”
“They hoodwinked us into believing that they had to remove the tower which existed at Sparendaam because it was in the flight path of Ogle, and now they are bringing one even nearer to Ogle.”
Another resident said “the government should take the tower to the location where the old tower was.” She said that the space where the old tower was torn down, in ‘Pradoville 2,’ remains vacant to this day, and is more than sufficient to hold the new one.
Willis had agreed that if consultations were held prior to the construction, the current situation could have been avoided. He said however, that they are currently working to correct this mistake.
Also left out of the planning was the Plaisance/Industry Interim Management Committee (IMC), which did not deliberate on the matter even though it was brought up at a statutory committee meeting. According to a source, the IMC’s overseer, Kyron Williams informed that committee that once the letter came from the Office of the President it could not be stopped so it was not deliberated on by the
committee.
Williams refused to comment on the issue along with the IMC chairman Seedath Persaud.
Region Four Chairman Clement Corlette had also said that the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) had been left in the dark about the erection of the tower and that he only learned about the works after reading the papers on Monday.
However, this is not the first time the local governing bodies were excluded from such projects. Former Chairman of the now defunct Plaisance/Industry NDC Clinton Rollox pointed out that while he was chairman of the NDC at the time the land was distributed in ‘Pradoville 2,’ he was none the wiser about the process or even how the area became a housing area.
Haynes explained that in 1954, four villagers, seeing the need for a playing area, made representation on behalf of the village to the then Ogle Estate Manager Mr. Sullivan who gave the ground to the community for communal use. “If in those days they saw the importance of recreational facilities even more so today. Look how many young men we have with no jobs. What will they do to occupy themselves? This ground plays an important role especially for our young people who play in the ground morning and afternoon religiously.”
What is worse, Haynes said, is that the IMC is not doing a proper job at maintaining the ground. “We have been fighting for years to get this ground upgraded to no avail.” She said that the council has even been approached by residents seeking permission to manage the ground themselves but said that “we were pushed around and we never got a positive response.”
Former People’s National Congress Reform (PNC/R) MP, Aubrey Norton, said that actions will be taken to ensure that the people of Plaisance are better represented. He said that more than 75% of the people in the community voted for A Partnership for National Unity (APNU).
“What the Local Government Minister did was to dismantle the NDC and installed a fourteen- man IMC, of which twelve of its members are either supporters or activists for the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C). He said that the committee’s actions thus far have indicated that they are bent on dominating the community.
“This has to stop. We are going to get together and put in place mechanisms to ensure that the people of Plaisance have their own NDC,” Norton said.
