There has probably never been a time in contemporary Guyana when either the state or the municipal authorities have not sought to ‘sell’ the populace some flimsy excuse for their failure to ‘deliver’ in one or another critical area of their responsibilities associated with the creation of an enhanced quality of service. Here, it is difficult not to be sympathetic to the municipality, historically ‘imprisoned’ as it has been in the shackles of our historic and altogether counterproductive (for the country as a whole) political gridlock. City Hall will continue to be a hobbled institution until we can find some way of wresting it from our enduringly rancid political culture.
As far as the travails of the municipality are concerned, urban sanitation, not least garbage disposal, and the implications of these for our urban public health status is by far the most serious challenge. Here, it has to be said that while the possible public health implications of what has become a monster of a sanitation crisis is hardly the subject of vigorous public contemplation, its real danger reposes in the fact that as of now, as far as this newspaper understands, we have no tools (or signs and indications) with which to press into service to derive with some measure the extent of our prevailing urban public health situation.
There is an argument to be made for the likelihood that the Georgetown municipality is so taken in with its political agenda that the likelihood that the capital may suddenly become stricken with some frightening public health malady would appear to be of the least concern, at the level of both central government and the municipal, which is likely the most serious problem that we face.
To pretend that at any point in time in our recent history our capital and its outskirts have been blessed with an exemplary or even acceptable garbage disposal regime is to secure immediate qualification for ‘long term’ stay at an institution that specializes in mental health matters. Here, the fundamental truth is that at the level of both the municipality and central government there is no serious objective evidence of an overarching obligation to public health considerations hinged to garbage disposal that would allow for the drawing of a line between municipal politics and urban public health issues. Surely, our politicians and municipal administrators can understand that on the part of both the municipality and the state their respective pursuits have to do with the welfare of the populace.
What can be more burdensome, more frustrating, one might ask, than to have to deal constantly with substantive, mainstream political issues that rival the ‘municipal’ ones in terms of their prominence? That is the most serious challenge that City Hall continues to face. This prevailing condition takes advantage of the inherently long-suffering nature of Guyanese and the corresponding awareness on the parts of both the state and the municipal authorities that Guyanese are unlikely to ‘cut loose’ whenever they are afflicted by episodes of downright ‘eye pass’ in the matter of garbage disposal. The truth is that from the perspective of both the state and the municipality they have both become aware of the fact that it will take more than an urban garbage disposal emergency to cause the citizenry to lift the roof.
One very recent example of what would appear to be the ‘looseness’ at City Hall is embodied in the events described in the Thursday August 15 issue of the Stabroek News in the matter of the extant urban garbage collection regime (Mentore expresses deep concern over garbage collection in the city: (Stabroek News, August 15, 2024.) While altogether absurd responses to inquiries directed at both the state and municipal authorities regarding matters of public importance have become par for the course in Guyana, it is instructive to review the remarks reported regarding the Mayor’s incomprehensible ‘deep concern’ over the garbage disposal situation. Surely, questions put to the Mayor with regard to the ‘garbage disposal situation’ in the capital warrant responses that speak to issues of remedy rather than mere ‘deep concern.’ Rather, it is City Hall’s timely and satisfactory remedial action that ought to be the subject of his discourse with the assembled municipal functionaries on a matter that (who knows?) may well be taking us in the direction of a public health emergency.
In this instance, we appear to have not gotten a great deal more from the Mayor than an expression of “deep concern,” whatever that means. This, in the circumstances, may well be interpreted in some quarters as a posture of indifference.
