Time to act

Throw the rascals out
The good citizens of Georgetown deserve better. The citizens of all Guyana deserve better. After all, this is our capital city, isn’t it? We’ve all seen Georgetown gradually sink into the “caddy and mud” from which it had been laboriously carved out – 200 years ago. Let’s not even mention that it had once earned the sobriquet “Garden City” – visitors might end up with such stitches from laughing, they might collapse.  That we have had the same mayor at City Hall since 1994 – Hamilton Green – while the city plunged into the mire is not coincidental. When the history of Georgetown – hopefully this year, to take in the sweep of the last 200 years – if Hamilton Green does not come out as the absolutely worst mayor ever, then the stars would have fallen from the skies.
But the man is still there and the city keeps sinking – in every sense of the word. Four years ago, the Ministry of Local Government roused itself out of its slumber and appointed a committee to look into why nothing was getting done by the city while billions and billions were expended. Our governments have learnt very well from our old colonial masters: something is wrong somewhere, just appoint a committee to look into it!
So the committee looked and came up with 40 recommendations. The head of the Investigating Committee became the head of the Implementation Committee. He promised to clean up the Georgetown stables. But years passed and nothing happened: citizens still had to hold their noses and avert their eyes when going from any point A to point B in Georgetown. So another committee was set up earlier this year to find out why the Implementation Committee was not implementing the recommendations from its previous incarnation (as the Investigating Committee). Luckily this committee was a one-man committee – but a force of nature –  the inimitable Ramon “Rambo” Gaskin. Well, Rambo didn’t mess around. In short order, he delivered his report.
Turned out that four years down the line, not a single recommendation had been implemented!! The head of the Implementation Committee says he and his group were “stymied”. Really?? The local government minister says he bears some responsibility. Really? The mayor is smiling like the Cheshire cat – and the citizens are moaning, “Will we have relief in this lifetime?”
Induced helplessness
The president opened the new Gy$50 million Tipperary Hall in Buxton – replacing its venerable 100-year-old predecessor. A great deal of hullabaloo and hubbub had been created when the former president had set the ball rolling, so to speak. This go-around, matters were not so polarised but it wasn’t all bonhomie either.   The president claimed that PPP and Buxton were “inseparable”. One wag noted that this closeness was not so evident at election times!! The PNC/APNU regional chairman pointed out that back in 1911 the people built the original Tipperary Hall with their own funds. This suggested to him that back then the people were better off. He should relook his history: the people back then were more self-reliant. Implying that the project might have been politically motivated, the chairman yet begged the president for help. The chairman missed a good opportunity to maybe tell the president that the people of Buxton did not want state help which creates induced helplessness. The presidential advisor on development, however, took umbrage at the chairman’s imputation and asserted the hall was built with no politics in mind.
We have evidently reached the Promised Land, where the lamb and the lions are frolicking together.
Charlie Brown
In the old Snoopy cartoon, every year Lucy brings out a football for Charlie to kick, pulls it away at the last moment, and Charlie lands on his behind. And Charlie returns again and again for the punishment. Sounds like the government and the opposition with the supplementary requests.