Dragons, dinosaurs and 40 million dollars

Nov 11, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

In what must be one of the most embarrassing moments of President Bharrat Jagdeo’s presidency (and believe me there have been plenty), Nobel laureate Derek Walcott tore into Mr. Jagdeo during Carifesta when the poet bemoaned the lack of governmental funding to the arts.
Instead of staying quiet, knowing there was an audience present, Mr. Jagdeo chose to give a rebuttal by saying there isn’t sufficient funds to go around; preference has to be given to economic projects.
Mr. Jagdeo inelegantly told the poet that if there was a choice between funding the arts or building a bridge, then the money has to be spent on the latter.
That got the Nobel laureate annoyed. Ignoring protocol (that he was speaking to the president of a country in which he was a guest of that very government), Professor Walcott notched up a few decibels and told the Guyanese leader that he has heard that explanation a long time ago.
A few persons told me that Walcott should not have raised his voice to the President but Mr. Jagdeo in many, many instances brings on this disrespect on himself by his public deportment. One suspects that Walcott must have figured that he could speak like that because in the rating of Caribbean personalities he towers over Jagdeo.
Mr. Jagdeo hasn’t learnt. Monday evening, while speaking at the presentation ceremony of the Guyana Motor Racing Club, Mr. Jagdeo told the audience (I wasn’t there – what is a dark-skinned guy like me doing at motor-racing?) that he will give money to fix the racing tracks but it could not be done before because of lack of resources.
Mr. Jagdeo probably forgot that his government has been in power just over 18 years.
Obviously the Walcott incident comes to mind. If the government does not have money to boost arts and culture and sports after 18 years in power then it is an admission that we have been poor, are poor and will always be poor. This is what got Walcott mad.
Walcott said that he had heart the Jagdeo explanation a long time ago. Obviously, hearing that same requiem in 2007, Walcott must have wondered if Naipaul was right.
Mr. Jagdeo announced $40M to repair the tracks. So what happened to the bridge logic that he handed to Walcott? That logic is still there.
No one can argue against money for sports (my opinion is that such a sum should not go into that genre of sports whose participants are very wealthy people who could fun the rehabilitation on their own) but how can Mr. Jagdeo give the motor-racing community $40M while the valley-ways of Georgetown are humongous lakes and forest where dragons and dinosaurs live?
I say without fear of contradiction that if you take a survey and ask Guyanese who live outside of Georgetown in all the ten Regions of Guyana if they prefer that $40M to go to clear those alley-ways than to repairing the motor-racing tracks over 90 percent of the respondents would prefer the cleaning project.
It is a most horrifying sight to see those clogged alley-ways. The fundamental terror in those jungles is that they are a gate-way to disaster. The water in the rainy season has no outlet and onto the streets then into your homes and business places it comes because those alley-ways are blocked. Where is the conscience of Mr. Jagdeo?
But more important, where is his nationalism? How can Mr. Jagdeo and his Ministers address any gathering be it the business community, returning graduates, foreign delegations etc and eulogize his Government when those alleys are a throw back to very primitive times?
Readers would know that I have consistently argued on this page that Mr. Jagdeo is running scared of public debate with his critics. I further opined that he will end his tenure without ever participating in a debate.
How can he when he would not be able to defend himself against the chastisement of spending money on repairing the motor-racing tracks and our alley-ways closely resemble the forests of the Amazon?
I dare any of those foreign drivers who are still here to go into the heart of the capital city of Guyana and tell me if they would not be speechless at what they see when their eyes glance on those alley-ways. So it was a few hundred million dollars yesterday for a swimming pool. Today it is $40M for motor-racing. How much more will be spent on other things that are not immediate priorities?
In the meantime, the snakes are having fun all over Georgetown.

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