Dear Editor,
I wish to respond to a letter printed by this publication on January 9, written by a resident of East La Penitence, with the caption ‘There should be value for money from the clean-up groups of East La Penitence funded by the government.’
It is with sad emotion I admit that the author of that letter is my neighbour, and a misinformed one at that.
I wish to highlight a few inaccuracies in Mr Solomon’s letter that may have misled the uninformed subscribers and general public who do not have the facts surrounding the operations of the groups functioning within the constituency of East La Penitence. I wish to make it absolutely clear that East La Penitence Community Development Group along with the East La Penitence Community Policing Group are made up of and managed by residents from the community. The Ministry of Agriculture has a Drainage and Irrigation group which functions under the directive of that ministry and provides remuneration packages for its personnel.
The East La Penitence Community Policing Group is autonomous and totally separate from that group. Every activity undertaken by these groups are initiatives of the citizens in the order that may affect them and contrary to the belief that Mr Solomon and a few others may have, these groups do not enjoy the benefits of having millions of dollars invested in them by the Government of Guyana or any other agency as may have been suggested.
It is also indicated that after our clean-ups the weeds from the drains are left on the parapets, another attempt to mislead the public.
In his letter Mr Solomon identified the area he has been living in for over three decades as not being a paradise. If that’s the case then instead of complaining I urge him to contribute positively towards the neighbourhood he resides in, if not for the groups’ sake then for his own sake.
For every activity undertaken by these groups we have engaged the residents through public meetings and door-to-door sessions, in addition to television/radio broadcasts and social media for the notification and participation of our residents. If Mr Solomon feels that our ideas for this community are still on the drawing board, why hasn’t he come forward with his brilliant ideas even after we approached him on several occasions to contribute voluntarily as the rest of us have been doing since the formation of these groups. Members of these groups have volunteered their time, money, efforts and resources towards making this community a better place, not just for ourselves but for the community as a whole, and we have been doing so without looking forward for a reward or any form of payment.
For the past two years of operation members of this group have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars from their pockets to beautify the community of East La Penitence; we don’t always get full participation from residents or agencies but that has never deterred us from our objectives and goals.
I wish to advise the general public and others who may express interest in our group that all our activities can be viewed and followed via facebook at https://www. facebook.com/eastlapenitence.cdgroup.
Yours faithfully,
Dhillon A DeMendonca
Chairman,
East La Penitence
Policing Group
