Gearing for international forums

Nov 23, 2010 Editorial

Today, Guyana begins hosting the meeting of the Union of South American nations—UNASUR—a mere year after this country agreed to become a full member. All the leaders of the countries in South America would be coming here, some for the first time.
International meetings and conferences are usually preceded by a hive of activities on the part of the host countries. In this case, when Guyana is playing host, the activities include a massive cleanup campaign. Unwanted structures are being demolished and parapets spruced up.
Where necessary there have been paint jobs and drain cleaning programmes. Areas that never attracted the cleaning crews saw them and wondered at the reason because the UNASUR meeting means nothing much to the man in the streets.
Guyana’s drive to impress the visitors is nothing new. It is the same in every country in the region. Trinidad churned out millions of dollars on cleaning up Port of Spain. It even built a roadway in a hurry. Such was the frenzy that people begged that there be an international meeting or some conference all the time.
And so it is with Guyana. The government is spending a lot of money to impress the visitors because no one wants to present a sordid environmental condition. But one must ask why is it that such programmes are only undertaken when visitors are coming? They should be ongoing because taxpayers are spending their money to ensure that they live in a clean environment.
For example, over the weekend, Works Minister Robeson Benn spearheaded a serried of demolitions around the city and sections of East Bank Demerara, particularly in the area around the Cheddi Jagan International Airport. Indeed, there were the usual noises from the owners of these perceived obstacles but not enough to halt the exercise.
In almost every case, the people had their building material returned to them, perhaps to rebuild as soon as the UNASUR delegates leave. That is one of the problems with the authorities in Guyana. They tend to undertake projects but rarely is there follow up of a continuation of the action. Many of the drains and canals cleaned ahead of the meeting will be overgrown before the end of the year. There will be no sustained cleanup campaign.
It was the same ahead of the Commonwealth Finance meeting. The Ministry of Human Services and Social Security, in conjunction with the Works Ministry, began to remove the vagrants from the streets. Minister Priya Manickchand was in the forefront of the activity. When questioned, she said that it is the aim of the government to get all vagrants off the streets and that the programme would be ongoing.
Each night vehicles targeted those locations known to accommodate vagrants and there was the forcible removal. Many of these people were taken to the night shelter in La Penitence. No sooner was the conference over than the vagrants were back on the streets and as could be expected, the Ministries that had undertaken the jobs, simply left them to their own devices. Once more today, it is not unusual to see people sleeping on the streets.
Given the ongoing campaign to beautify Georgetown and its environs, we would have expected to see another campaign to clear the pavements of vagrants. Perhaps that is too arduous a task so nothing is being done in this area.
What one finds rather confusing is the drive to clean the areas most likely to catch the eyes of the visitors while ignoring the people who deliberately litter. In Georgetown, there are the City Police who would make sporadic arrests of people caught littering but for the greater part, the society simply ignores the litterbug.
The good thing is that whatever social condition prevails in Guyana is not unique to this country. They exist even in developed countries. The question, therefore, is why attempt to whitewash? The authorities would respond that it is in every country’s interest to present a most pleasant image.
Some countries wall in their social rejects and garbage piles and their shanty towns. Guyana merely picks up after its people and stands ready to do the same again when another international event comes.

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Gearing for international forums

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