Dear Editor,
We write to register our grateful thanks to Mr Deolall Rooplal, the Region Four REO and his staff for their kind efforts in constructing the new bridge which connects section ‘B’ Non Pareil and Melanie Damishana. The elderly, the infirm, invalids, pregnant and persons and others, as well as schoolchildren are greatly benefiting from this venture. But it leaves the top (south) of Cinema Road to the Embankment (linetop) in a very disgraceful condition, where traffic is stuck because of a great, wide pothole there, in which deep water has settled, causing a problem especially when it rains.
It is going on close to four years now since we have been begging for Cinema Road to be properly and finally fixed. The heavy rains have come yet again, and still nothing has been done to the middle section. Cinema Road is an absolute disgrace; taxis are now refusing to go there. What if it is an ambulance? Or the fire brigade? Or the doctor or nurse? We constantly ask ourselves how did the highway maintenence team in their right mind ever think of doing both ends of Cinema Road, and leave out the middle section which is in such a state of disrepair, and then allow it to get worse over time.
We asked for speed humps to be put down to help reduce the incidence of speeding cars especially, while large trucks have added to the destruction of the road and have made it worse. We have asked the REO for road heights to be in put in place at the beginning of the road, to prevent large, high-sided trucks from using it as a short-cut from the Public Road to the linetop. Cinema Road in Melanie Damishana is nothing but a misery, torment and disaster. As Secretary of the Resident and Home Owners’ Association, I have travelled to other villages on the East Coast, and have seen that each village road has been done to perfection, with the speed humps and height restrictions in place. For the residents of Cinema Road who own vehicles, it is a nightmare; the expenditure for damage to their cars is enormous, to say the least.
Why it is we can’t have those features on Cinema Road that the other villages have? After all we are now very tired of asking the REO to look at the situation here. We pay our water, light, and rates and taxes promptly; we know that some others do not, yet they have fine roads to use and to walk and drive on. Why can’t we live with fairness for all Guyanese no matter what the creed, instead of separating who is PPP/C and who is PNC. We should not stop to wonder who is of what ethnicity and where we live. We should all be Guyanese working to make this wonderful country of ours great under one flag, the Golden Arrowhead, and one government serving the entire population of this glorious land.
Lastly, the short stretch of land which separates lot 132 – my house lot – and lot 134 stands idle. It is believed that this particular short piece of land was intended to be a walkway between the two house lots. I am appealing for the REO’s permission to have this land weeded and developed for farming purposes.
Yours faithfully,
Timothy Alphonso Smith
For the Resident and Home Owners‘ Association
