Dear Editor,
In June, Blue CAPS carried out its Building Communities Through Leadership Training and Service (BCLTS) programme. One aspect of the course was for participants to engage three communities, namely East Ruimveldt, Rasville and Roxanne Burnham Gardens, and conduct simple surveys on how citizens felt about their communities and what were some of the major problems they faced. In the end close to 250 surveys were completed.
Just about two thirds of the community residents interviewed indicated that they were dissatisfied with their community as a place to live. In terms of the things they dislike about their communities, most prominent were poor drainage, which resulted in flooding, lack of street lights, unclean environment, poor roads, inadequate recreational facilities, youth unemployment and crime.
Editor, one can easily see that the salient issues identified could be solved if we had an effective and accountable municipality. Sadly, we have not had local government elections since 1994, hence no one in the Georgetown municipality is held accountable for the glaring inadequacies.
This situation must not persist and we call on the Local Government Minister to unhesitatingly announce a date for local government elections so that communities can thrive and citizens feel satisfied.
Yours faithfully,
Clinton Urling
For Blue CAPS
