Dear Editor,
We are just over two months away from the Christmas season and we are now greeted by blackouts on a daily basis for over eight to twelve hours. Last week I was officiating at a very big wedding at my church and the moment I started the wedding I was greeted by a blackout. The lights went off, the microphones were dead, the place was hot and I had to stop the wedding until we put on our standby generator.
A few months ago I had guests from over eight different countries at the evening service, and the moment our guests arrived they were greeted by a long blackout; we had to put on our generator again.
It’s quite embarrassing that in this day and age of modern technology our nation is moving backwards not forwards. It’s more humiliating when we have foreign guests at a church or are officiating at a wedding.
At most church services now I prefer to use the generator rather than GPL because GPL have failed this nation. But they don’t fail to disconnect your power if a day passes and bills are not paid. Their bills are getting higher and higher for electricity they are unable to supply.
They carry away meters from old people saying the meters have been tampered with and they have to pay two years’ backdated bills to get back their electricity.
They have had the old meters since GEC days, and these had never been replaced; now they go all over hollering ‘meter tampering’ in relation to old, malfunctioning meters.
Every day hundreds of our tired citizens have to form long, unending lines at GPL to query bills. It’s disgusting when your light bill exceeds your salary, and it seems as if our politicians could not care less about the progress of this nation. From the old PNC days to our present administration, we are still living in darkness 48 years on from independence.
Do we have a vision to run this nation since elections are very soon? What our politicians need is a new modern vision, but it seems to me none of our political leaders have what it takes to govern because of a lack of this. Real leadership is about having a vision-plan. What is the vision-plan of our leaders? What I see is our politicians fighting and accusing each other daily so a house divided by itself cannot stand.
If they are fighting among themselves it means our nation has bad examples to follow, because leadership is about leading others by example.
Our existing administration has had 22 years to deal with blackouts, bad drainage and irrigation, garbage everywhere now the outbreak of chikungunya, all because our environment breeds the mosquitos that carry the disease.
People throw garbage everywhere from the rich businessman to the poor ghetto folks. I normally walk through a road that leads to the Mon Repos Primary School and I see tons of garbage thrown near the road by residents. Over 800 schoolchildren walk that road daily to go to school and inhale the stench from the garbage, while over 400 people walk there daily to go to the market.
Where are the sanitary inspectors? Where is the chairman from the NDC? What are the police doing about this?
The police drive that road daily and they should stop residents from dumping their garbage near this school road or else jail them. But nothing is happening; those who make the laws break the laws, and we need to be a more responsible people if this nation is to progress. All the drains and trenches are blocked up. Just recently I was in Berbice where I grew up, and I couldn’t recognize the trenches because the trench and the dam are the same – full of trees and overgrown bushes. Our leaders travel this nation daily but turn a blind eye to the main issues that have to be dealt with.
Leadership should not be about getting citizens to vote for us, it should be about producing a more responsible and efficient people.
We have grown to be a nation of rum drinkers, killers of wives and families, thieves and corrupt people – the worst ‘cuss’ words come out of every home daily. We push academic study and education, which is good, but I believe unless our people turn to God and go back to their churches, temples and mosques we will grew worse because only God can help us to be a morally upright and responsible people.
With the right technology our Kaieteur Falls can give this nation and our neighbouring nation electricity.
We must explore every possibility in relation to modern technology to govern. Our ministers love to talk for long hours but talk alone won’t get the job done; it’s action. It’s time we got up from our slumber.
To eradicate blackouts we should turn to solar power; with less than a million people it’s possible to have solar power in every home.
We will have no need for GPL. Guyana is a nation too young to die from daily blackouts.
Yours faithfully,
Rev Gideon Cecil
