Dear Editor,
At a community meeting during the early 2000s, the Minister of Local Government took the liberty to inform the residents of Kwakwani of all the projects with attached costs that had been undertaken by his ministry in the sub-region of Region Ten. When he was through with his presentation and floor was open for comments, I was able to convince him that even though the projects were located in the Kwak-wani community, they were not for the benefit of Kwakwani residents. From then until now, there has been no change; all of the significant building projects being executed are for the benefit of persons residing outside Kwakwani. I will humbly apologise if I am proven wrong.
From that period until now, almost every year the sub-regional office is given an upgrade, and the same can be said for the student hostel that keeps expanding every year. One is forced to wonder aloud what form of representation is made on behalf of the residents. Or are we all paying for the
sin of the last national and regional elections?
I said to the Minister then and will say again, as a people, Kwakwani made more progress without the level of politics and the politicians we have today. What we saw as a need then for the community, we worked together and got it. Be it the road from Kwak-wani to Ituni, a secondary school or teachers‘ hostel, Kwakwani residents were able to get it done.
Some may say we are in a different time, but the staff of the Kwakwani Hospital were able to demonstrate to the entire community that there is still some sense of community-mindedness when they undertook the task of repairing the deplorable road leading to the hospital a week ago.
If residents are to depend on what is allocated to the Neighbourhood Democratic Council for road repairs this year, they will see that ‘hard road to travel‘ is the correct answer to the Minister‘s question when they were asked if they knew a particular Jimmy Cliff song.
Yours faithfully,
Jocelyn Morian
