THE COMMON SENSE SOLUTIONS OF THE PEOPLE

Jul 15, 2010 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The general accusation that is made against many of our politicians is that they are out of touch with the population and this leads to them not taking as keen an interest in the affairs of the average citizen.
There is some truth in this assessment.
For one, the demands of public office often mean that the politician does not have enough time to spend on the ground assessing the needs of the population. Invariably also, politicians tend to live away from the average citizen, are not patrons of the places that the public frequent, are bombarded with the entreats of the propertied class and as such after a while tend to be shut out from that world in which there are so many problems. And thus arise the accusations that the politicians are divorced from the people.
The reality is very much different. It is rather the opposite. It is the people who are far divorced from the political realities and it is the people who are often so preoccupied with the trials of life that they have no time for the larger political picture. This reality was so much evident during a recent outreach by the government when the people were amused by some of the comments of the politicians that they did not realize the tragedy of their own postures.
This has always been the reality. It is a small handful of individuals who are the ones concerned enough to take action on issues of human rights and bad governance. It is not that the people are not concerned. Rather it is that they are so preoccupied with their survival that they have little time or energy to dedicate to the issues, which are at the heart of their problems, issues such as transparency, corruption and abuse of power.
This places a wall between the people and the politicians and leads to a lack of trust by the former in the latter. Inevitably communication breaks down and the public feel that they are not listened to by their leaders. This leads to frustration and alienation.
Despite this feeling however they continue to make suggestions as to how things can be improved. And much of these suggestions make sense and should be heeded.
Two examples are noteworthy at this time. The first concerns disconnection campaign of the Guyana Power and Light. One member of the public wrote a letter urging that before the GPL send their disconnection crew out, they should contact the delinquent customer and inform them via phone if possible that their accounts are in arrears.
In this way, they will give many of those whose bills have not been paid on time, the opportunity to go and pay their bills and thus avoid disconnection. This will save the GPL money and will improve customer relationship.
It is a good suggestion, except that GPL may not have on their database a contact number for their customers. But this can be easily rectified by simply asking the customers for such a number, when they go to pay their electricity bills. These numbers can be entered into the database and upgraded and changed as time passes.
But it will allow for GPL to avoid embarrassing situations whereby it may wrongfully disconnect a customer.
The GPL customer service has improved leaps and bounds over the past few years. For example the response to emergency situations is much improved. And there is no reason why they cannot before disconnecting someone try to contact that person and remind that individual that there is an outstanding balance on their account.
The second suggestion made by a member of the public concerns the disposal of garbage in Georgetown. Since there is no regular service in place, there is an accumulation of refuse in many places. The dumpsite is out of bounds for citizens who may wish to take their garbage there and in any event this practice cannot be tolerated since it would pose problems for those managing the site.
One citizen has offered a solution. He said that the City Council should establish large dumpsters in various areas where citizens can throw their garbage which can then be picked up at the end of the day by the council. This seems to be a workable solution since these dumpsters can simply be trailers.
The public can be told what days they will be in which areas and make arrangements to have their garbage taken to where the dumpsters are. Since the dumpsters will not be sitting there for long period, there is hardly a risk of the area becoming smelly as a consequence. It is something that the Council should think of in the interim while it tries to find a way to ease its cash flow problems.

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THE COMMON SENSE SOLUTIONS OF THE PEOPLE

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