Dear Editor,
As I absorb the anxieties and outrage generated by the proposed toll hikes for the Berbice Bridge, I ask: what else is in store? What next and what else could be lying in ambush, like not-so-well concealed time bombs, to maul and maim the people of Berbice?
The first thing that should be noticed is that I am limiting this, for the moment, to the hapless residents of that increasingly besieged county: the fear, the anger, the pain. Once again, they are overwhelmed by the gifts that came from their political leaders, their political friends, their political partners. Some partners these have proven to be in the PPP; I am neither resident nor supporter nor believer, and there is the sense that dirty heavy betrayal has reared its deformed head. Again. Betrayal by a party that says it cares and claims to have the best interests of their own at heart. Some heart they have, these fast-talking, cunning, self-serving leaders.
Skeldon was supposed to deliver and be the foundation and salvation for a reeling, failing industry. The most that can be said is that it is there: a monument to the trickery and deceptions of supposedly leading political figures. Political figures who appeared to be embracing, but were really setting the stage by applying the vise for slow, excruciating later strangling. Later is now. That was what has played out at Skeldon, despite all the money spent, all the promises made, all the visions shared. Except that the money spent did not go where it should have. The promises and visions of grasping venal political exploiters were not for workers or sector or community; but for themselves through walking on the backs of those their own; those that they promised to take care of faithfully. The pain of the people of Berbice is the pain of Guyana. Indian agony and sugar worker agony is Guyanese agony. This is so regardless of whatever colour they may be; however lesser the trickledown intensity is. Unfortunately, this is the same sick tawdry story coming to the surface (again) through the ugliest pus in the matter of the newly announced tolls for that bridge.
The Berbice Bridge, also a good thing, emphasizes a now familiar Guyanese experience. It is that anytime and every time some political people are anywhere near the taxpayers’ money, the taxpayers come up short. They lose. They lose then when the money is spending; they lose later when they, the citizens, have to pay through the nose for the misdeeds of others. Because for every dollar involved and declared necessary, a substantial fraction of that dollar goes elsewhere by misdirection, misuse, and misappropriation. Public and secret political cronies celebrated then; today, the ripped off taxpayer, whether from Berbice or larger Guyana are left to carry the garbage of those who feathered their nests. Taxpaying citizens near and far have to find and hand over the hard dollars. The party had a party then; the people have the hangover now and are saddled with cleaning up the mess now and in the future. If this is not a capital offence, a hanging one, then somebody educate me. If political carpetbaggers, clandestine businessmen, and unclean fellow travelers do not belong to the ranks of the criminal class, then this country has no felons, no need for a new jail.
It has only honest stewards and political saviours. Look at them. They smell. They smell through the sweettalking, and the sweeter sounding treacheries. This is the odour of those afflicted with many dirty sicknesses on the inside beneath the sheen of their political postures and covers. Skeldon and Berbice Bridge-good developments, but only if husbanded and delivered cleanly-stand as tombstones casting long dark shadows that blight comrades and communities and, by extension, this country. These two timebombs are known. How many more are ticking out there below the radar to prostrate further this society? How many more are there, compliments of unprincipled, unsavory, and unindicted political leaders?
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
