Dear Editor,
I was delighted to find over a week ago that all the potholes on Church Street, Georgetown, were fixed. I thought for sure that the Ministry of Public Infrastructure was going to continue their work round the corner onto Irving Street where a veritable trench is opening up on the approach to the Crown Street corner. Then, surely, the road works crew would turn the corner onto Crown Street which has a patch of road that is nearly impassable. But no such work is ongoing. So, the question arises as to why Church Street is viewed so favourably above all the other streets in the city where potholes abound and force vehicles off the road or else necessitate some deft manoeuvring on the part of drivers to avoid them?
I am struggling to find a reason for this favouring of Church Street which is the location for a very popular hotel and casino and where vehicles are always parked on both sides of the street for a whole block. The public roadway is also used as an apron for vehicles to pick up and put off passengers, creating traffic jams all day. Perhaps, the Traffic Police are unaware that the free flow of traffic is constantly impeded on this particular stretch of roadway? Will anything be done to correct this?
There are surely zoning and building regulations that require plans for large-scale establishments to include off-the-road aprons and dedicated parking for the constant comings and goings of vehicular traffic? Are they simply not enforced? And if not, why not?
Your editorial of July 20, 2021, `Our traffic management crisis’ is welcome and mentions the opening chasm between the retarded reality of life in Guyana and “our oil and gas-saturated field of dreams”.
That dreamscape is, sadly, irrelevant to our daily life. As I stated in a previous letter, there is no comprehensive plan forthcoming from Government as to how at least some percentage of the newfound oil wealth will be used for the good of us ordinary citizens. Is there a holistic plan to fix the electricity supply countrywide, the water supply, the education and health systems, the potholed roads, the garbage pileups, the maintenance of canals and irrigation systems, the impending fallout from climate change, and, most importantly, to replacing the prideful national macho “kulcha” of lawlessness that is partly responsible for the continuing road carnage with one of decency and a respect for lawfulness, a culture that will go a far way to stamping out the corruption of favouring cronies for special attention?
But is there such a vision for our country? Does such a blueprint exist anywhere? Or are we simply going to continue hurtling from crisis to crisis with no idea of where we are to end up other than in a fatal crash both literally and metaphorically?
I do believe that we have become desensitised to the shock, horror, and hopelessness of our daily life because we have been victims of all the unfulfilled promises from successive governments for over sixty years. We shrug our shoulders and even find humour in it. It is a way of surviving.
Funding to the tune of US$293 million to fix GPL. Who believes that that will end the blackouts? No one.
All the wealth from gold, diamonds, bauxite, timber, rice, and from sugar when it was king have still left us impoverished and unless there is an announced plan and the will to tackle the endemic public corruption – which should be a national embarrassment – there is little hope our daily reality will ever change.
Sincerely
Ryhaan Shah
