Dear Editor,
I listened with rapt attention to the wondrous things being done for Guyanese by His Excellency President Irfaan Ali and explanations by my friend, the Vice President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, on the oil and gas sector.
I grew up in a society where we were taught to believe the things told to us by our Leaders. My experience on Saturday, after speaking with persons beyond the confines of the main urban centres compelled me to share my experience for one day.
I had an appointment at the St. Joseph Mercy Hospital at 09:00 am; left my home in Lodge at 8:35 am and proceeded into Camp Street and turned left into Parade Street, behind the Police Sports Club. There was a back-up of traffic, which held us up for over ten minutes since apparently some VIPs were arriving at the Police Sports Club ground.
We attempted to turn around, but the Police rank on duty said that we could not, since the streets were made a one-way for that day, for some Farmer’s Day activity. To the best of my knowledge, there was no public notice, making the street a one-way, so we had to wait for some time before proceeding west.
My visit to the hospital was for a costly test. The equipment at the public institution was inoperable in spite of the daily boast of how much the government is spending on the health sector. Here at the private hospital there was an outage, and the hospital’s generator was engaged automatically.
This is Guyana, whose founding fathers told us about the virtues of the State providing good health care. Where are the billions approved in Parliament going?
After attending a funeral service at the Memorial Gardens, in the midst of an unpleasant and ugly Le Repentir cemetery, it is no secret why the place where our departed loved ones are resting is in such ugliness, but this has been ventilated many times before.
Thereafter I proceeded to a funeral service for a brilliant young Guyanese in New Amsterdam, Berbice. There, the Mayor of New Amsterdam and citizens shared their anguish of an unreliable and erratic electricity supply. On my arrival back in Georgetown, it was already nightfall and there was no electricity in the entire area, from the Seawall road to Lodge Housing Scheme. This has been the pattern recently. The majority of my neighbours cannot afford generators and as I dictate this letter, I had to purchase twenty gallons of diesel for the generator I use for most of the time.
This is Guyana where after 2020, the Government sent home competent persons and replaced them with Party loyalists. And so, our President instead of dealing with the root cause of the daily inconvenience to citizens, continues to blame the APNU+AFC Coalition for everything that is now going wrong.
How and when can we persuade the present Government that the problem is their obsession to place ill-equipped persons in positions of authority and decision-making.
For the first time, before and after Independence, we have a Government that has available to it enormous sums of money, but it is being misdirected. I beg of the President to use the bounty available for human development in its fullest sense, the provision of electricity everywhere and the availability of water, I will advert to an outline of genuine and sustainable human development.
Without being sacrilegious, after the stress of last weekend, I was tempted to sing the hymn “I surrender all.” Instead, let us pray or protest where necessary to bring those in charge to their senses.
Yours faithfully,
Hamilton Green
Elder