A troubling lack of vision and planning

Oct 23, 2013 Editorial

Operating in a country that is widely referred to as poor, there is a frustrating tendency among Guyana’s administrators to squander the limited funds available, a penchant to borrow that which can barely be repaid, and a troubling lack of vision and long term planning.
It has long been established that no one accepts culpability for anything that goes wrong. From the simplest of situations – determining who owns a fallen pole that may have caused some damage – to more complex issues like a costly stelling at Supenaam that seems to be falling apart, the buck is always passed. The hedging is nauseating. It is in the DNA of those in authority.
All things considered, the country’s sustained development is essentially being stymied by the aforesaid lack of vision and planning.
How else, for example, can the slothfulness of the East Bank four-lane project be explained? Millions are reportedly expended on feasibility studies, etc. and the go-ahead is given, yet when construction is well underway, everyone suddenly becomes aware of how difficult it is to relocate the infrastructure belonging to the public utilities.
Would this not have been a primary concern in the planning stages? How could moving utility poles not have presented itself as a priority? It was so obvious. And even more importantly, wasn’t there a clear understanding of the myriad challenges posed by the intricate underground system?
Yet amazingly, before this inexplicable series of self-induced setbacks can be overcome, we compound the distress by further congesting the East Bank corridor with more inhabitants.
Housing development is always progressive, but in such circumstances, the rush to establish and boast of such progress is counter-productive. Already we are at a stage where the daily commute, particularly at the rush hours, is a nightmare.
However, we continue to erect more homes there – thousands of them. That of course means more vehicles, more bottlenecks and traffic jams, and less effective traffic control. All of this and more, right in the middle of ongoing construction work. Even the planned detours don’t seem too well thought out. The situation is disconcerting now; by Christmas it will be chaotic.
It’s obvious that the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. Everyone wants to look good in the eyes of the boss – the Head of State in this case – thus there is frenzied activity to show their worth. But it is clear that the communication between these individuals is very poor or non-existent. This occurs in almost every other facet of our decision-making framework. Money is being, and has been committed to areas, and spent in ways that support this.
Lest we forget, a little over eight years ago, the 18-acre area aback of the 1763 Monument, up to the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall, was earmarked for a recreational park. This was one of the most progressive initiatives that the ruling administration had come up with. It had always been accused of neglecting South Georgetown, and that venture was the perfect counter to that notion.
On August 18, 2005, the Government Information Agency reported the following: “Cabinet at its August 16 meeting favourably considered the project and offered its no-objection to the award of $45M from the Guyana Lottery Fund to be used to finance that development.
This is according to Head of the Presidential Secretariat and Cabinet Secretary Dr. Roger Luncheon at his weekly post-Cabinet media briefing yesterday.
“The Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) is continuing its implementation of the plan adopted by Cabinet to develop the two areas, D’Urban Park and the Seawall,” Dr. Luncheon said.
The CH&PA has already begun the tendering process for the development work for the D’Urban Park area. That work included land preparation, backfilling and drainage work on 18 acres of land that starts from the National Sports Hall, on Homestretch Avenue. Upon completion of this first phase of the D’Urban Park project, economic, recreational and tourism facilities would be established, the HPS noted.”
For the record, tens of millions were spent on a project that never materialized. That location is now an inner-city jungle. Need we ask about the seawall and its environs?

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