There is something about governments which are in office for any extended period that causes them to become divorced from the electorate that put them there in the first place. They become inward-looking and unresponsive to the needs of the population. Gradually they come to confuse the national interest with their own interest, and as a consequence often have a tendency to perceive all critics of their actions or decisions as being anti-national in some sense. The problem is compounded if in addition thereto they are short-term thinkers, which they will invariably be if their main focus is on getting into power and staying there, rather than concentrating on quality governance once they are in office.
This government exhibits many symptoms of alienation from the people, in addition to which it generally lacks a capacity to look at the large picture and the long-term as it relates to governance. Having said that, do not let us pretend that governing Guyana is easy for any administration. Leaving the ethnic problems entirely aside, the challenges of the physical environment are hardly minor. This is, so to speak, a hydraulic society, with life on the coastal belt contingent on the efficient management of the sea on the one side, and internal drainage on the other. These require massive investment and high-level engineering skills to design, build and maintain. If we do not treat this as a priority, more particularly in this era of rising sea levels, then we will pay a price, and the evidence is that more and more we are starting to pay that price. To neglect this most fundamental aspect which makes life on the coast viable, is effectively to neglect the people.
“No one cares,” said a desperate Malgre Tout villager on the West Bank to Stabroek News last week, as she forlornly surveyed her flooded property. The residents of this village and neighbouring Pouderoyen are now inundated every time it rains, but they can get no response out of the NDC or the RDC. One resident was of the view that their problems were caused by a blockage of a main canal by a rice farmer in addition to the clogging of drains and water outlets. While the authorities sit on their haunches and ignore them, the residents are losing livestock and vegetables, while the furniture and personal effects in their houses are subject to repeated water damage. This would be enough to bring the politicians in some other country out in droves, but in Guyana nothing happens.
Yesterday, we reported that there had been the worst flooding Bartica had ever seen in thirty years, and that some businessmen estimated their losses in the millions. Regional Chairman Gordon Bradford told Stabroek News that he thought that the drainage system was inadequate, and that while culverts and kokers might have served their purpose when they were built, they are now unable to cope with the quantity of water they have to drain. Mr Bradford said he would be sending a letter to Minister of Local Government Ganga Persaud requesting that an engineering team examine the drainage and irrigation system.
It remains to be seen whether the government may conceivably be disposed to send engineers to Bartica, given that it is a critical township connected to the gold industry on which the country is so dependent, and in which the central administration has shown some political interest by installing an IMC. The villages of Pouderoyen and Malgre Tout, in addition to other small communities, are unlikely to be so lucky, unless the central government suddenly sees fit to lean on the RDC in particular to get something done.
The common factors in all locations which suffer flooding are clogged drains and the indiscriminate dumping of garbage. Some of these problems are tied up with the local government impasse, which despite Mr Ganga Persaud’s asseverations to the contrary on the front page of the Weekend Mirror yesterday, are really to be laid at the PPP/C’s door. But that fact notwithstanding, there are still things which can be done if the government had the will. Minister of Works Robeson Benn, for example, following the catastrophe in April which saw a three kilometre stretch of Georgetown inundated by the ocean said that the draining of the seawater was hampered by the garbage-choked trenches and drains, and that he would approach the city council to see what could be done.
Have these two agencies on which the fate of so many rests actually met and put some kinds of arrangements in place to deal with the drainage problems along the city’s coastal front? If they have, then they have been uncharacteristically discreet about it. What can be said with some confidence is that the drains are still blocked. The authorities escaped the criticism they would otherwise have faced when the highest tide of the year last week kept to its side of the wall because there was no wind to drive it over the top and carry away the Minister’s little sandbags.
Has the government commissioned any study about our options in a context of melting polar ice-caps, etc? If they have, they have hitherto not been disposed to disclose anything about it.
How little they care about the people, at least, was demonstrated when SN reported that the Ministry of Works was furiously engaged in building groynes to protect Kingston (for which read Marriott Hotel) for when the erosion cycle moves further along the coast. The only satisfaction the residents currently under siege from the Atlantic can derive from the revelation that their taxpayer dollars are going to protect a gambling installation which they are also paying for, is that according to engineers groynes are no protection against wave action. They are, apparently, designed to prevent the movement of silt. That notwithstanding, it exposes the government’s priorities in this instance, viz, casinos are more important than citizens.
And finally, an example of a different kind. This time it is a dry-land issue, involving the mostly single mothers of the Yarrowkabra Charcoal Burners Association. Last week they protested the decision of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission to give BK International licensing rights to a sandpit on land above the community’s largest potable water well. Yes, BK International, that giant of a construction firm which could find alternative sites at 100 spots along the Linden Highway to dig sand without displacing mothers who have found a way to feed their families. What is the matter with the GGMC, and what is the matter with Minister Robert Persaud that he could not at least whisper in the commission’s collective ear that this is nothing short of nonsense?
Of course, all kinds of legalistic-sounding reasons will likely be trotted forth to justify a behemoth being given a licence which will have the consequence of displacing the little people, but if it goes ahead it will provide yet further evidence of where the government’s true priorities lie.
