Dear Editor,
I recently made another visit to Guyana, the third in as many years and as usual, upon my return to Florida where I now reside I have been inundated with the familiar “How is Guyana?”
Well Guyana remains at least to me a wonderful country with so many unspoiled places that even if you were to live to 100 years you still could not take it all in.
However, I know that I am not alone when I say that all is not well in so far as the general affairs of Guyana and particularly the city of Georgetown is concerned. Yes, I see lots of big structures pushing out of the ground like wild weed among what was once the beautiful Garden City of the Caribbean. These structures seem to be dangerously rubbing shoulders with tiny cottages and small businesses which are all still amazingly, supported by the same infrastructure (drainage, sewerage system, water supply system and narrow roadways).
Now I will not pretend to be any kind of expert, but common sense will tell anyone of average intelligence that this looks like a disaster waiting to happen. How all this will impact on any future city planning when everything is already so choked up is anybody’s guess.
Perhaps it is time for our planners to start looking at an
alternative city, but that does not even seem to be on their computer screens at this time. With global weather patterns already
changing before our eyes Georgetown, a low-lying city, does not geographically look too well placed.
While all this is so, there are still a few small things that can be done to beautify the city, even if its days are numbered.
• For instance, the garbage which everyone complains about can be tackled as the first priority by engaging local engineers in the development of a decent and appropriate management disposal plan.
• Secondly, parapets, sidewalks and avenues can be groomed and landscaped sensibly at reasonable cost with help from citizens at a personal level and maybe even corporate Guyana.
• A plan can be devised where permission must be applied for if anyone wants to use the city’s parapets for storing building materials like wood sand, earth, etc, and this should only be granted for a specified time with regulations for a retainer to be constructed to keep all material out of the open drainage system. Fines should be imposed if the regulations are not complied with and all stuff removed promptly when work is completed.
• Anyone dumping in canals and other drainage systems should be heavily fined.
• All venders should comply with a common standard of constructing display stands with no old shoddy pieces of lumber permitted, and these should not encumber traffic or pedestrians.
Of course all of the above is only for starters and certainly not original, but the biggest problem of all is getting them done in an environment and culture where disrespect for law and order is as commonplace as spitting and peeing openly, as if these were the most natural things to do.
Maybe because Guyana’s politics on both sides of the House are riddled with so much personal ego, it is difficult to see anything changing any time soon. Meanwhile everyone seems happy as they go along their daily lives as if the mess does not exist. What a way for a nation to go ‒ aimlessly into the future and loving it.
Yours faithfully,
Bernard Ramsay
