Dear Editor,
It is crystal clear the people of Guyana must at least for the time being bear the burden of poor, undemocratic governance worsened by a number of leaders obsessed with the accumulation of wealth. Every hour of each day one can write or report on inappropriate behaviour by high state officials. Today, I give but one example, only because one newspaper ran a front-page story about the national swimming pool languishing.
First, discussions related to the Georgetown Development Plan (2001-2010) assumed that this swimming pool would be built within the D’Urban Park Square area behind the 1763 Monument; happily this received the blessings and solid support of then President Janet Jagan, even as some of those around her attempted to use this area for what appeared to be a purely money-making effort, ignoring the concept of good planning and the need to put this facility in the heart of the city. I saw a plan quite different from that approved. This proposed plan included the bringing together of several government offices now scattered around the city into one large complex. The good sense of this is obvious. Here I give credit to Mrs Jagan for standing up for good principles.
Without notice (as is the new pattern) without consultation with the Mayor and City Council, the swimming fraternity, and, I suspect, the Central Housing and Planning Authority, the state announced the building of a pool somewhere off Sophia. So we shift from a convenient central location. Can we now ask the authorities the following?
1. What motivated the identification of this venue?
2. Was there any meaningful consultation?
3. How much has been spent so far and who are the beneficiaries of these sums of money expended?
4. Was the million spent dumping sand east of the 1763 Monument related to the construction of this swimming pool, and if not, what was the purpose?
5. Who got the contract to dump the sand, and how many tons were deposited and at what cost?
Let us not hear some nonsense about technical difficulties.
We built a swimming pool behind Castellani House three decades ago, that is still functional and used for international meetings. It was sturdily built using locally produced tiles, etc.
As a member of the public, I would be happy to know what is going on.
This government is not short of money but perhaps short of genuine interest in people. Imagine in this day and age there are police stations in the city without a stand-by generator? I only add this because this week we celebrated the police anniversary and had a spate of outages in the city.
Yours faithfully,
Hamilton Green JP
