Ship ashore

Oct 12, 2010 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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The people of Parfait Harmonie are about to experience something spectacular. It has to be something spectacular considering the amount of money that is going to be spent.
It has been reported in the media that the sum of eighty million dollars has been allocated to carry out emergency works on the access bridge in that community.
Now if this is the sum that is going to be spent it probably means that what the people of that community are going to have is a double-decker bridge, the likes of which has never before been seen in Guyana or perhaps even in the English-speaking Caribbean.  Eighty million dollars is a lot of money for emergency works on an access bridge.
One can only hope that those in authority will respond and explain just what is going to be built or repaired with this eighty million dollars. Perhaps they would also like to share with the public, the cost of the original bridge, when it was constructed and why it has now become necessary to spend this massive sum of money on it.
There is tendency within the government. Instead of responding to the question posed by the media, it instead chastises the media and accuses it, as has been done in the case of this newspaper, of having a political agenda.
The public is not fooled or impressed by such reactions. The public too has its apprehensions about what is taking place in the country and it too would like to see a greater commitment to transparency and accountability.
In Trinidad and Tobago, the new government is, with each passing day, demonstrating its seriousness towards these issues. Unlike the authorities in Guyana, instead of being critical of the media, the Trinidad Government is addressing the concerns of the media.
Just yesterday, it was reported that the Prime Minister of Trinidad, following a newspaper report, has ordered a review into a contract with a view to having it rescinded.
Now this is taking action to ensure that things are done in a transparent way.
In Guyana, however, there are many public works contracts which have been highlighted by this newspaper. Instead of addressing them, the authorities go into hiding and refuse to speak to the media. When they do speak, they attack the media and accuse them of trying to hold back development.
What development are we speaking about? If the authorities equipped with all the facts refuse to be forthright with the people of Guyana about certain contracts, what we have is the same old backward political culture that ruined this country.
Guyana is not going to get better unless something is done about changing the way the authorities deal with questions concerning contracts that are issued. The media was promised that it would be able to speak to the technical personnel that recommended the award of the contract to build a road to the Amaila Falls hydroelectric site. So far, this has not been done.
This newspaper is also awaiting responses to questions it posed on a number of projects within the agriculture sector last year. The media is awaiting the naming of the persons who will constitute the inquiry team into the collapse of CLICO (Guyana). The media has also been trying to find out what were the penalties imposed following the problems that developed at the Skeldon Sugar Factory.
That factory costs some US$200M and is not yet anywhere near peak performance.
The media is awaiting word on why an area originally designated as a playfield in the Diamond Housing Scheme was reportedly converted into house lots and who are the beneficiaries of those lots. The media is awaiting word on when the review that was done into the wharf at Supenaam is going to be tabled and debated in the National Assembly.
Within the PPP, there are number of individuals lining up to become their party’s presidential candidate. They are assuming that whoever gets the nod will become the country’s next Prime Minister.
They may be taking the Guyanese public for granted because unless they inform the Guyanese people whether they intend to conduct reviews of the major contracts issued by the present administration, they may find that the support of the people may not be as forthcoming as before.
They must recall an incident during the last elections when the party became concerned about the poor turnout along the East Coast. The people are increasingly becoming fed up with the indifferent attitude being demonstrated towards concerns over the award of certain contracts.
The people are fed up with a schoolboy mentality that seems to pervade large sections of the administration.
It is time for the PPP to grow up. They can begin this by taking a leaf out of what is happening in Trinidad. Otherwise they may find themselves suffering the same fate as the Patrick Manning administration who built a lot of things, spent a great deal of money but still lost the elections.

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