Dear Editor,
Here we go again, slapping at each other as we now approach local elections, with claims and counterclaims of rigging, bribery of voters, smear tactics and outright political brinkmanship, and of course, the blame game. In the meantime, Georgetown, our only real city is virtually abandoned by our national politicians to flooding, terrible sewerage, black-outs (with the government, who owns the failures, calling them “load shedding”- a joke not even laughable); horrible water to our homes (when it flows properly), streets devastated by years of total neglect, garbage and it’s smelly aftermath all over the place, crime endemic throughout our city, stray dogs and cats spreading rabies and other diseases, endangering our children; our once beautiful zoo and gardens degraded by years of neglect and our cemeteries decimated by “leaders” who just didn’t care.
I can go on and on about much more “gross neglect” by our leaders over many years since independence against the citizens of Georgetown, up to this day- Where is the affordable housing to accommodate our young workers who have jobs in our city? Where are the public toilets to stop the public pissing? Where are the police who should patrol our streets day and night? Where are the public garbage cans to collect the garbage thrown on our streets? Where is the public transport for our citizens? Where is proper parking available to our citizens? The answer is no-where and certainly no-when and waiting on the mistruths and misinformation from the politicians, we’re faced with simply, no-ever and forever never.
Every Guyanese loves to visit George-town, and every one of us knows all too well that we can easily have a beautiful city again which can vibrate waves of progress throughout our land; it can also create boundless energy and creativity for our young citizens throughout our land with entrepreneurship and artistry emanating to the rest of our country; Georgetown and its environs is the centerpiece of Guy-ana with the maximization of industry, commerce, religion, culture, security systems, political apices and other important national foundations -so it is most important to show those who hold to the notion of government interference into the powers of the duly elected Mayor of our city that they are totally wrong-every government of Guyana has appointed a Minis-ter of Local Government who has repeatedly compromised the Mayor’s function and power to this day- to the deleterious effect of all that is listed above.
Editor, here we go again, slapping at each other, talking about the importance of local elections and in our only city, it does not matter because local democratic government is compromised by the communist caste system of having a “local government Minister”. The PPP/C will claim that they never had a chance to have a PPP mayor so give them a chance – but check out the local areas they control for many years where there is minimal progress – crime and drugs in Berbice on the rise, good jobs missing, poor water, poor electricity etc., etc. in PPP controlled areas. The PNC/APNU will claim that the PPP minister holds back funds and interferes, but when they had central power with their local government Minister in the past and recent times, Georgetown still descended into the mess it is today.
Editor, the only answer for betterment in our beautiful city is to get rid of the Ministry of Local Govt. and to hold hands and experiment with coalition governance in Georgetown as a start to a broad reconciliation policy for Guyana with young people of all races and religions playing the leading roles. Since we have an enthusiastic youthful President and a strong and also youthful Opposition Leader, let them lead the way forward, especially with our new emerging wealth. The people of Guyana should demand coalition policies because the slapping continues and will lead us no-where. So, let’s try holding hands to work together at the local levels to make the Guyanese people happy and contented to create even more wealth and security – young people have to demand the riddance of central government interference while creating the conditions for working together across ethnic, racial and religious lines – urgency is paramount and we need a young Mayor with a business oriented background – anyone else would be another tragedy for our city.
Sincerely,
Cheddi (Joey) Jagan (Jr)