Those citizens of our capital who thumbed their noses at City Hall’s announcement over the weekend regarding tomorrow’s ‘Green Georgetown Restoration Consultation’ at the National Cultural Centre might be forgiven for doing so given all the circumstances that attend the event. The forum comes on the heels of a meeting between municipal officials and President David Granger and with due regard to what we are told is the President’s understandable longing for a much upgraded capital, the chatter emanating from City Hall these past few days over tomorrow’s gathering is unlikely to impress a great many of the capital’s citizens.
‘Public consultations’ of one sort or another have become par for the course in Guyana. They are reminiscent of so-called ‘show trials,’ elaborate events convened for the purpose of making contrived statements deliberately designed to create a public impression but which have no bearing on the reality of the given situation. Another phrase comes to mind: window dressing.
Of course, all of us would be considerably gratified if, in the evening of its day, the current City Hall administration can finally deliver our dream of a restored ‘Garden City’ though we can hardly blame the many likely sceptics who might accuse the municipality of simply ‘being at it again,’ making much ado about nothing, convening consultations with a citizenry that has been ill-served over the years and has long lost confidence in its shenanigans.
Even so, it would certainly have been better if City Hall’s pursuit of a restored ‘Garden City’ had been allowed to proceed without the high-sounding rhetoric about “a vigorous education initiative to instil in citizens the necessity and long-term benefits of a clean and green city,” and the requirement of “a new attitude from all citizens occupying or traversing the capital.” Such outbursts come across as more than a trifle amusing when the track record of the municipality is put into historical perspective.
After all, City Hall would do well to remember that in the matter of failing to “create and maintain a clean and green city” it has been, in many respects, no less delinquent than those citizens whom it now seeks to admonish, so that it would be better for all concerned if we can simply be offered a sampling of what it says it seeks to do with a minimum of attendant fuss and fanfare.
One cannot help, too, but note the fact that City Hall is seeking to consult (presumably) with the widest possible cross section of the citizens of Georgetown on a wide-array of the most important issues in relation to the rehabilitation of the capital in the middle of tomorrow morning ‒ a working day ‒ as though it seriously believes that that the forum allows for sufficient time and opportunity to learn everything that the citizens might have on their minds.
We are told in a media report that “top officials from the Council” will “hear the concerns of the public, their interests and possible ideas on particular issues,” and that “the Council’s officers will also answer burning questions from the public and provide information and answers to matters within the purview of the Council.” The “objective of the event,” citizens have been informed, “is to raise awareness about the plans for Georgetown and its restoration within a green framework.” Contextually, the pertinent question is, of course, who and how many will put in an appearance at the National Cultural Centre tomorrow morning and whether those who do turn up will reflect anything resembling a representative cross-section of the citizens who, for years have had to endure the hardships of a capital which, in so many ways, has failed to serve them well.
There are those, of course, who are prepared to grant City Hall this opportunity to do what it has failed to do previously; except, of course, that the municipality needs to bear in mind that its star has long pitched and that public confidence is not an asset which it enjoys in anything remotely resembling generous measure. It ought not to assume, therefore, that it can delude citizens into believing that a half day of conversation – not consultations but, at best, hasty conversation ‒ with what may be, at best, a few hundred or so citizens, can pass for the kinds of deliberations which it needs to have with the citizens of Georgetown if it is to secure an effective understanding of what their concerns are.
Nor should City Hall assume that people will necessarily believe that such inputs as they make into tomorrow’s strictly limited conversation will be included in whatever plans it might have for ‘a Green Georgetown.’ Not only that, but does City Hall seriously expect that after more than two decades of woeful underperformance the citizens are under any illusions that it can even begin to deliver ‘a Green Georgetown’ in such time as it has?
