Dear Editor,
Please ask a journalist to ask the City Treasurer, on our behalf, which green spaces have been upgraded and which recreational facilities have been developed in the city. An “intensified two-year campaign to sustainably restore and develop the city” should surely have produced some observable results. However, since I came home in December 2017 for Christmas I have not seen evidence of any such intense activities. There are still overgrown drains, and filthy, potholed streets, and a lamentable lack of recreational facilities in areas like Wortmanville, Werk-en-Rust, La Penitence and Albouystown to name a few. Meanwhile what the Mayor and Town Clerk (well according to newspaper reports it may be the Town Clerk and perhaps the Mayor, without the benefit of discussion by, let alone agreement of the councillors) seem to be pursuing, with intensity, is a plan to take over one of the few recreational facilities that exist, in order to create houses for the Mayor, the Town Clerk, the City Engineer and the Medical Officer. (By the way, where are they all living meanwhile? Do they not have houses of their own?) Now they have cut down trees in said green space and created a new swamp in their place. If this is an example of an “upgrade” then I have no hope that Georgetown will ever be a ‘Garden City’ again. And they gave part of another recreational facility to one school when there are several schools in proximity to that facility, which should all be able to use it (and once did, according to a former student of one of those schools to whom I was speaking recently). Is that how they propose to “develop” recreational facilities and “upgrade” green spaces?
Given this lamentable record, I have a suggestion. Stop the “intensified” campaign (it just ain’t working), end the fancy “retreats” at Essequibo resorts and the air travel excursions to various destinations, and use the money to pay the workers’ NIS contributions and PAYE taxes. They may even have something left over to pay their wages on time.
Yours faithfully,
Pat Robinson Commissiong
