Dear Editor,
I refer to a story in the Stabroek News of Friday, August 08, 2014 captioned `Mahdia protest irresponsible’, reporting statements by Mr. Norman Whittaker, Minister “within” the Ministry of Local Government & Regional Development. He was referring to the picketing exercise held by the residents of Mahdia over the deplorable Mahdia roads and some other issues. He was quoted as saying that the protest by the residents over the deplorable roads at Mahdia was irresponsible since an approved $26m has been set aside for works in the region. He even mentioned that the Region Eight Chairman should have knowledge about the $26m that was allocated and also of plans by the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment to asphalt the community’s internal roads during this year. While it is not my policy to be responding to every critic, it is important to respond sometimes to set the record straight since some of them are very misleading especially Mr Whittaker who over the years has become an expert at misleading.
The $26m that he mentioned is in the region’s capital budget and none of it is for construction of roads in Mahdia. All they have in that for Mahdia is $2m to construct drains. Anybody can go online and check the Region Eight budget and see for themselves. In connection with the asphalting of the internal roads, over two years ago we were told of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment’s plans to asphalt the roads. However, to date nothing has been done. Since Mr Whittaker knows about the Ministry of Natural Resources’ plans to do the roads this year I would like him to tell us when work will be commencing on these roads as we are approaching the end of this year and the rainy season is approaching. Also, it is actually three months now since the picketing exercise that Mr Whittaker claimed was irresponsible and nothing has been done to repair these deplorable roads which is totally unacceptable.
I can recall earlier this year when I had cause to accuse the Government of willfully neglecting the Region as it relates to making finances available for the revetment of roads, Mr Whittaker was quoted as saying that I should demonstrate initiative in engaging the miners in my region to assist in rehabilitating the roadways via self-help.
For me, asking miners to repair the internal roads in Mahdia would have been tantamount to the Regional Chairmen of regions one, two three, four, five and six asking the sugar and rice farmers to assist in repairing the internal roads in their regions. Unfortunately, for some strange reason/s Mr Whittaker has never done that. This clearly shows that Mr Whittaker doesn’t have any respect for the miners and the residents of Mahdia. Region Eight is the second largest revenue earning mining region in Guyana after Region Seven and despite his being aware of the large amount of revenue that government collects from Region Eight, his Government seems reluctant to do any infrastructure work in this region. There is no asphalt road in the entire Region Eight. It is a shame to know that Mahdia is a fully developed community and doesn’t have any proper water supply or proper roads. When I consider the amount of revenue that is collected from Region Eight and the money that is given back by this government for infrastructure works as compared with the other regions in Guyana, it only reminds me of the apartheid days in South Africa.
I personally would be very interested to learn whether Mr Whittaker would have his family living in here with these roads.
Judging from the above we can clearly see that Mr Whittaker is allowing himself to be used by this government to give lame excuses for its vindictive behaviour. In closing I would once again just like to admonish Mr Whittaker to stop allowing himself to be used to give lame excuses since in doing so he is only embarrassing himself.
Yours faithfully,
Mark Crawford
Regional Chairman
Region Eight
