Dear Editor,
I humbly seek a little more space in your letter columns to highlight the disgusting state of our city as a result of more severe flooding over the last two days. Unfortunately, every time this subject is raised, we blame Global Warming and the geography of our coastland. As I admitted before these two factors are major contributors but our negligence with respect to good housekeeping is deplorable. Our clogged mud drains and canals, poorly graded and maintained parapets and roads are things which we can control but appear to pay little attention to. When city streets are built or repaired the work is substandard and the contributing factors such as parapets that are much higher than the roads are not addressed. Even as sluices are opened, and pumps put into action the drains and canals remain filled with water due to poor maintenance. Guyanese need these questions addressed and the appropriate action taken.
We live in fear each time there is a few hours of heavy rainfall that our yards and streets will flood with stinking, sewage filled water all around us. Editor, this is 2021 and many huge structures have been built and continue to be built on the outdated infrastructure of the 40’s and 50’s and before that. Our city fathers seem oblivious to this fact and continue to allow major construction which put further unbearable burden on our drainage and sewage, roads parking etc. If the best our city planners can do is to allow cottages and small commercial buildings to be dismantled so that large concrete buildings of 4 levels and more replace them then they are not doing their job of city planning, and worse still, are contributing to the problem. We need a serious discussion on the state of our city. What we now experience is just the beginning. If, however, there is a bigger plan to deal with drainage and irrigation or better still relocation, then we the Guyanese people need to be told about it. My guess is that no such plan exists, and we are in for more of the same.
Sincerely,
Bernard Ramsay
