What of the clogged drains and existing garbage?

Dear Editor,

I grew up in Fourth St, Alberttown, between Light and Albert streets, and the other children in the street and I would play in the gutter at the side of the street, chasing the little fishes as we walked. The alley behind the houses, on the southern side of the street, that stretched between Light and Albert streets was the short-cut to either Albert or Light Street. We had little use for the roads at that age, safer and quieter as they were at that time in the mid ’50s. The alley was also used as a means of disposal of the dead dogs and fowls with the carrion crows, now long gone, flapping down to clear them away. The M&TC, as it was known at the time, would send their workers weekly to clean the gutter in the alleyway, after which they would spread slaked-lime on the black mess dug up from the gutter.

The picture would not be complete without mention of the pigeons which had the run of the city and would line the rooftops every so often, and you know what would be left when they moved on. But the rain would come and wash everything down into the huge wooden vats that abounded in yards in the city in those days. These ubiquitous birds were considered a public health risk by the Town Council, and rightly so, and were gotten rid of. Now as you would observe, they are making a strong comeback.

The gutter in Fourth Street, rightly called the drain, is now clogged and filled with a dismal, stagnant body of green water running the entire length of the street and around the corner into Light Street. One would need a walking stick to find the concrete top of the drain as this is now well below the level of the water. The alleyway has fared no better, and in fact has suffered a worse fate, as it is over grown with grass and wild eddoes, and contains its fair share of the now familiar garbage.

This totally unsatisfactory state of affairs in Fourth Street was inherited by the PPP/C government, so it has been going on for over 20 years and nearer quarter of a century. I recall the woes of an elderly lady in Albert Street with the blocked grass-covered drain (SN, May 28, 2013) who later appealed to Minister Robert  Persaud, as he led the green walk through the city last Sunday. And this scenario is repeated many times over in Georgetown, some maybe not existing for as long as the blockage in Fourth Street.

So what is to be done? It is quite clear that the City Council appears to be powerless to relieve  the citizenry of Georgetown of this abysmal and unhealthy situation. One of the numerous consultants that was here last December said at a workshop that he would not bring his family to visit Guyana because of the filthy state of Georgetown. And he, as a foreigner, could not be alone in forming this unfortunate impression of our capital. So on the one hand we have the beleaguered Mayor & City Council, and on the other, the Ministry of Local Government, the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment, and hovering somewhere on the perimeter, the Ministry of Works and Communications, ie the government.  The M&CC has the mandate for the smooth running and cleanliness of the city of Georgetown, but the M&CC is the child to the parent, and it is inconceivable that whatever quarrel the two may have, Georgetown, once proudly known as the ‘garden city’, should be allowed by the final authority of this country, to rot and fester as it is now. Yesterday was World Environment Day, and there seems to be some move afoot by the Minister of Natural Resources & Environment to have firm action taken against litterers. Excellent.  But what of the clogged drains and the existing garbage?

Yours faithfully,
Lennox Applewhaite