An eight-year-old Carifesta sore

Aug 26, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

There can be no doubt about it; by now every Georgetowner would like the Guyana Government to host an international event every day. In a month’s time, Guyana would become a modern city.

We would have lamps on all major streets. The National Park would edge out any other botanic avenue in the Caribbean.

The zoo would bring regional visitors in large numbers to see the wide variety of animals we have. South Korean officials will no doubt come to Guyana to see how we outmanoeuvred them in terms of sanitary impeccability in the capital city.

The most welcomed aspect of this resuscitation of Guyana campaign would be the installation of clean toilets and running water in public buildings.

The only casualty in this huge modernization drive would be the motor mechanic. His livelihood would be seriously threatened.

Since all, not most, but all the highways and essential arteries will be redone to bring them in line with what obtains around the world, then our cars will not have to suffer constant breakdown.

Driving in Georgetown should only be done by wealthy people. Even the middle classes do not have money to maintain their vehicles after what the roads in Georgetown do to them.

No economic research has been done on the connection between the awful streets we have in the city and the rate at which vehicles have to be repaired.

Once done, the investigation will reveal that the poor hire-car owner who makes a living out of short drops incurs a serious dent in his monthly earning because of expenditure on car parts Members of the lower middle class suffer the same fate.

There will be more money saved if these categories of car owners did not have to drive on primitive roadways in Guyana.

Every citizen that lives in Georgetown must have asked him/herself when would be the next big international event in Guyana, hoping it would be sooner than soon.

After the modernization campaign we saw for Cricket World Cup 2007, the Rio Summit and the Commonwealth Finance Ministers Meeting, and now Carifesta, then the people of this country are assured that the rundown physical infrastructure that dots the entire landscape of this territory will be refurbished.
For years the National Park was neglected. Last week its long and winding road was resurfaced.

The one I like in the National Park was the coat of white paint they slapped on a rusty bell. Bell lovers would have to be eternally grateful to Carifesta for that one.

The zoo wasn’t touched because no Carifesta event is slated to be held there. Lights came to Carifesta Avenue because quite a large number of the delegates and overseas visitors would have to travel in the evenings on that roadway.

The holes in countless number of streets were filled. Some lamps that were not working were fitted out with new bulbs. This was the case outside of the Office of the President on Vlissengen Road.

Throughout Georgetown, you could have seen the cleaners in brisk motion desperately trying to get Georgetown tidy for Carifesta. On the Sheriff Street sea-wall, it was action non-stop.

It is unfortunate if you missed the clean up campaign on the sea-wall. It was an inviting sight. The grass was scintillatingly appealing.

It was an aesthetic joy to sit there with a sandwich in your hand and watch the 9 to 5 people going home on the East Coast. I wonder that even when the colonial officials strolled on that grassy parapet if it was ever given such vacuum-cleaning.

If you dropped your cup-cake on the grass, you could have picked it up. The biggest Carifesta eyesore was removed with a swiftness that broke the Usain Bolt’s world records.

A driver traveling north on Lombard Street who turns east into Hadfield Street has to manoeuvre away from a huge crater on the Hadfield Street as it meets Lombard. This hole has been there for eight years.

When I was teaching my daughter to drive, she was literally scared of that sight. All drivers making that turn should be.

You see as you turn east, the south bound traffic turning east too, meets you and you have to slightly go to your right but that is where the hole is. So the possibility is strong that you can have a collision.

Can you guess who ran into that crater one evening? Our own editor, Adam Harris. He told me it damaged his wheel. I wrote about that crater several times. But it took Carifesta to have it filled.

For eight years, this Government refused to see it had an obligation to the countless drivers who had to negotiate that bend. Isn’t that contempt for citizens?

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An eight-year-old Carifesta sore

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