WHOSE IDEA IS THIS?

Mar 31, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

---

Wakenaam is a tiny island in the Essequibo. Except for a handful of families, the island is almost deserted because of the abysmal lack of employment for young people.
Rice and cash crops are still grown on the island but a good crop only means that money is there to help pay the debtors while a bad crop, which occurs more often than not, destines the farmers to further bankruptcy.
Leguan, another island in the Essequibo, is not doing much better. Here, too, rice is grown but the price is not the best and the best that the farmers can hope for is to break even. Unemployment is also high in this area with many families sending their children to the coast to find jobs and betterment.
Against this dismal background, it came as something of a shock to discover that the government actually has plans to build an airstrip on Wakenaam. This is one of the projects listed in the 2009 Budget. In fact it was also said to have been listed in the 2008 Budget but has been rolled over to this year.
Now, why would the government be building an airstrip on an island which is desolate? What benefits will this airstrip create for the residents there, apart from being a white elephant? And just whose brilliant idea is it to build airstrips in both Leguan and Wakenaam?
When I asked a farmer on the latter island what he thought of the idea of an airstrip on Wakenaam, he asked me “Where they gun put it?”
I myself was wondering about the same question. And just what purpose will it serve. Anyone wishing to go to Wakenaam usually does so by boat. Persons living and visiting the island can hardly afford to pay the cost of that service, much less to afford to pay for a plane trip.
The idea of an airstrip on the island therefore makes no sense unless some one is planning to buy an aircraft specially dedicated to providing tourists and visitors to the island with free transportation.
I hope that somebody in the government, perhaps the President, can explain just how these projects to build airstrips in deserted islands materialized because it obviously had to have had the approval of the Cabinet for it to be in the National Budget.
It is the appearance of white elephant projects – that give the government a bad name and fuel the charges of corruption against the ruling administration.
There seems to be no justification whatsoever for constructing these airstrips, and thus this will unfortunately open the government to charges that many projects are being conceived merely to fill the pockets of contractors with very little benefits accruing to the people of Guyana.
But if the airstrip projects seem brainless, then the offer of the Ministry of Human Services to pay to 700 persons the miserly sum of $1,000 for child care is an insult and a travesty. It would be better if the government did nothing than to make such a ridiculous offer.
The government however good its intentions should not be paying anyone for child care services. The government should be working with community organizations to establish and support the running of day care centres which would charge mothers a reasonable fee for the care of their children.
It seems to me that the socialist tendencies of the PNCR are infecting the government and they are trying their best to create a massive welfare state in which citizens will become more and more dependent on the government for their needs.
Last year, the government promised a fund to assist single parents. A register was created for single parents to register, but this was so large that the government had to scale down the contemplated assistance and agree to offer loans and grants to some single parents to engage in economically viable projects.
The government should not be offering any assistance to single parents. The government should not offer what it cannot afford.
What it should do is to work with these single parents to ensure that the fathers of many of the children support these children.
They should change the laws of Guyana to ensure that child-support is increased to a realistic level.
Equally, they should work with non-governmental bodies to provide skills for many of these single parents. There is an acute shortage of skills in this country.
Despite the furor about persons not finding jobs, most employers will admit to the difficulties in finding good employees.
Even some of those graduates from university are not up to scratch and require training and orientation before they can be integrated into the job market.
Perhaps it is because of these problems that the government is building airstrips. They may be hoping that more and more Guyanese will take to the skies in search of greener pastures. And considering that Wakenaam and Leguan have a lot of green pastures, then this may explain the need for airstrips.

---

---