Dear Editor,
A country with a leadership that refuses to recognize between available funds and the management skills and prudence to effectively manage those monies is doomed to failure and will be responsible for the wisdom of ‘willful waste brings woeful want’ and worst, opening the door to corruption and greed, the cancer that only brings pain, suffering and distress to this and succeeding generations. With due respect to the many brilliant young engineers, valuation officers, quantity surveyors we do not have a sufficient number of experienced professional and technical personnel to effectively monitor and evaluate the many civil works announced in the budget. This deficiency is not new, even in the days of the greats, Phillip Allsopp, Steve Narine, Lawrence Charles, Terry Fletcher, Joe Holder, Neville ‘Beardman’ Thomas, Drayton, P. Semple and many others. With fewer projects, they faced challenges to ensure that people received value for their money. The inability to match experienced engineers with the many projects announced is manifest, clear for all to see.
Having once held the portfolio of Works, Hydraulics and Supply at one time, I recognised that even without the abundance of cash available today the challenge was to have a sufficient cadre of engineers, quantity surveyors and experienced contractors to effectively monitor works being done on roads, bridges, dams, canals and buildings. The present government seems unwilling or unable to learn from their own and others’ experiences. I can spill pages and pages of examples, but for brevity, remind us when for a brief period I was Chairman for the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA), I observed buildings and houses constructed on the East Bank of Demerara during Irfaan Ali (now President) tenure as Minister responsible for Housing. I discovered houses built with uneven foundations, pillars and steps moving from the main building, twisted walls, leaking roofs and poorly constructed septic tanks. Millions had to be spent on corrected works. I summoned an engineer and asked if they conducted soil tests, he answered in the negative and when I pursued the matter, he said they were instructed by a top brass from the Ministry to get on with the construction of the buildings. This represents the attitude of the PPP’s spending of the people’s money.
I avoided the tedium of many glaring examples of contractors missing deadlines, shoddy work with poor quality materials, but this is not new. Recall the million dollar building in High Street, south of the Carnegie School of Home of Economics, the never-done International Airport and the many buildings not completed at the times given where generally good weather was enjoyed throughout the year.
I have avoided giving dozens of examples – at Bamia, Amelia’s Ward, Upper Demerara River, an area identified to ease the burden of travel for eight hundred students was awarded to an unknown contractor. It should have been completed in late 2022 but as I dictate this letter, is still not finished, frustrating the expectations of parents who continue to expend sums to get their children to school far from where they live. Black Bush Polder and in every region of Guyana has examples of poorly executed works and failure to meet set deadlines. Investigative journalists will have a field day going through this list of incomplete and where completed, poorly executed works. Of course, the capricious offhand manner of awarding contracts generally is the new pattern of paternalism by the PPP.
This is not new under a PPP administration and for those with short memories, let us not forget the shameful Del Conte Project, where funds were expended to build the road along the East Bank of the Essequibo River from Parika and not one foot of road was ever built and no one was held accountable. Before dictating this letter, with another senior, we left to visit a family member at the Catholic Home in Vryheid’s Lust. There was road construction extending from the railway embankment to the new public road. No sign stating works were in progress and no public notice. In earlier times, contractors were required to warn people where to travel so the roadways are accessible. The question, why no notice? The other senior member, not able to walk the distance, had to forego the intended visit. I shudder to think what would happen if an ambulance or fire truck was required to come to the assistance of inmates of this home where the majority are unable to walk or move unaided. We see elsewhere lives seem not to matter for this administration. In my time, it would be unthinkable to block a roadway at both ends of a public highway. For the sake of our country, I plead with the government to step back from opening the floodgates for corruption and putting vast sums in the hands of inexperienced persons.
The question of taking sums from the National Resources Fund (NRF), and this irresponsible and unnecessary borrowing crusade is another matter. But Editor, somewhere hidden in the bosom of the ruling elite there is a grand scheme to deceive when the General Secretary of the PPP, for reasons which are obscure, states we are not yet a rich country. He is wrong, even with the inadequate revenues from oil, gas, diamonds, etc., Per capita, we are the richest people in the world, but thanks to the policies, proclivities and propensity of the PPP many of our citizens are poor. Earlier efforts to establish a national building code were frustrated by this administration. A building code will provide guidelines for whether you’re building a one-bedroom house or a massive multi-storey edifice. With the aid of the Guyana Association of Professional Engineers (GAPE), this should be a sine-qua-non before embarking on this spending spree as noted in the 2024 trillion dollar Budget. Further, it is ludicrous for Ministers and the President, when they visit state-sponsored works, to complain about shoddy work, failure to meet deadlines, etc., If, as should be, experienced professionally driven persons are assigned to each and every project, this bombast by the President and his Ministers would not be necessary. But therein is our problem throughout the country since the PPP took office. Their obsession, their priority, their proclivity are a technique and trick used by dictators and we see this particularly in areas where they do not have critical control. You tie a man’s feet and hands, throw him overboard in deep water and the President and his Cabinet colleagues come along with their scriptwriters, cameras and speedboat to pluck you out of the water and declare to the world that they are your saviours, the new messiahs.
I end with a plea that the President listen to the voices of reason and concerned patriots and to remind him that while being the fastest growing economy, borrowing to proceed with massive multibillion projects, ‘you can fool some of the people some of the time but not all of the people all the time.’ Finally, I ponder why should our government, representing the descendants of our original people, slaves and indentured, pursue policies inimical to their own self-interest and will likely burden and be a millstone around the necks of our children and our grandchildren when we look at the crumbled roads, hospitals, shortage of drugs and medical personnel, schools without teachers and teaching aides, and what is now a blessing will be a curse. May Allah, God, Lord Krishna or whatever name you call the Creator, may he save us from the demons of destruction.
Sincerely,
Hamilton Green
Elder
