Dear Editor,
Malcolm Harripaul AA, in his letter, “Development must start with the NDCs funded with oil money,” dated Mar 15, 2022, notes that “For the past 2 years, 2020 to 2022, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo and President Irfaan Ali have been expressing dreams using Oil $$$ to make Guyana another Dubai. They dream of skyscraper hotels, casinos, luxury resorts, and mega projects springing up around Georgetown and on the East Coast of Demerara.” However, even in the face of his optimism, he rightfully questions the state of the “… the remainder of rural Guyana, where the NDCs are supposed to govern, but lack resources to do so, resulting in all the villages being eyesore garbage dumps.” He is so right. In Guyana, nothing has really changed, and I have no faith in the future; the culture is well-set.
Harripaul highlights Region Three, and cites the West Coast Demerara public road that is littered with wayside “workshops” where trucks and other vehicles are parked on the parapets, shoulders, and even on the drive lanes. . He adds that “At Anna Catherina, used engines are displayed on the shoulder and drive lane. In one street in Anna Catherina, one “workshop” has strewn the parapets with scrap iron. (And) At Uitvlugt, there is a truck “workshop” on the roadway while at the Mandir Street, one shop usually has vehicles diagonally across the street. Sheer lawlessness is what prevails in Region Three.”
Well, my take is that Region 3 encapsulates all of Guyana. Take the East Coast, along that Better Hope to Plaisance area, and what do you get? Tyre shops, wash bays, parked trailers, on and off loading to containers, tyre servicing and a host of places and activities, either parallel, or on the actual main road. Unthinkable! Add cows, horses and donkeys on a daily bases, and that is Guyana. When, as expected, these animals get killed, they remain there. The stench has now become a part of the mix. It gets worse. Enter just about any village, and the cross streets are veritable dumping ground. The road, what are supposed to be roads, even the main access ones, are filled with pot holes, and will impede even tractors. I notice that some New York visits were made recently, and I am wondering if our leaders who went there, had roads like we have in our villages.
I saw that a well was commissioned in Lusignan, and I had to laugh. The news is always about potable water, when in reality, in Guyana, we buy our water, and so it is portable water really. Bottled water, inclusive of the five-gallon ones, is the norm here. No one really drinks water from our pipes. It is used mainly to wash, and even that leaves rust on the clothes. That is Guyana. That is what the diaspora in New York and Canada must be told. VP Jagdeo and President Ali, along with our ministers and high caliber politicians, need to start driving themselves through the villages across Guyana, and post pictures for the world to see. We must give them the tap water to drink, the very thing they ask us to drink, and they must utilise our hospitals and make their children born citizens of Guyana – not of Canada and the States. If and when these start to happen, then and only then will we know that Guyana is on the road to improvement.
Sincerely,
P. Mann
