Election time is better than Christmas

Dear Editor,

During last week, almost all the gas stations on the West Bank Demerara, West Coast Demerara and East Bank Essequibo would periodically put up signs saying “No Gas.” As a result of the ‘shortage’ of gas amazingly, all the gas stations from the above listed areas have increased the price to close to what it was before the government announced the decrease, and I am not able to verify if that is happening in other areas too. When the gas reduction was announced, everyone was very happy, including myself, because I assumed the prices for many things would be reduced, including transportation costs, but the government’s failure to have these prices reduced causes me to believe that the reduction was just a political trick.

Editor, long before the election date was announced, I visited Parika Backdam EBE, and couldn’t believe that an area which depends heavily on farming and supplies a wide variety of cash crops, the people are living with no electricity, potable water or a proper road. In order for them to get drinking water, they have to rely heavily on rain to fill up their various types of tanks, or leave the trench water overnight to settle, and then use it for cooking and drinking. Those who can afford it would purchase purified water and pay to take it in to where they are living, and some purchase stand-by generators. After hearing this, I immediately informed a few politicians and asked them to visit the area and see if they could highlight the people’s plight there, especially when the dirt road turns into one that is similar to what is in our jungle.

After living under those horrible conditions with the PPP/C for the past 23 years, the people were surprised and happy to see lantern posts in their area immediately after the Election Day announcement. It is no secret that election time is better than Christmas for us in Guyana, and I urge all those who are living in villages to come out and make their demands now, because otherwise they will have to wait until another election time to make them.

There are new schemes which have been recently established and people are not living there as yet, but the schemes already have potable water, roads and electricity, so why should a village like Parika Backdam that has a large population, have to wait until the PPP/C is under threat before they could get electricity? Are they being bought? Water is more important and very costly to the residents there, so why didn’t they run pipelines before the lantern posts? That just shows the vision and contempt the PPP/C has for the citizens of Guyana. Who knows, maybe the residents will get water next election time if they get back into power, which seems highly unlikely to me.

Yours faithfully,
Sahadeo Bates