A stitch in time

Dec 24, 2013 Editorial

The government has a way of allowing things to reach the stage where what should have been temporary actually becomes permanent. And when these things become permanent the very government has a tremendously hard time removing whatever that was initially intended as a temporary structure.
Many of the houses on the various reserves should never have been there. In the city people started to construct homes on the reserves used by equipment to clear the waterways. This should not have been allowed to happen but it did.
When either the government or the city council moved to use the reserves the people actually blocked the progress of the equipment. There were those who were accommodating; they moved their buildings enough to allow the draglines to operate but the programme was impeded.
In one case the residents actually blocked the passage of the vehicle and caused the intervention of the police. In the end the city council abandoned the trench clearing exercise with detrimental effects on the communities serviced by this canal.
And so we come to an issue that boggles the mind and we wonder how this could have happened in Guyana. A major auto dealer usurps a portion of the government reserve and establishes a permanent structure. The government decides that the East Coast Demerara thoroughfare needs to be expanded so it is time to use that section of the reserves usurped by the auto dealer.
But the auto dealer resists. He claims that some of what the government wants is transported property. The matter goes to court and in the end, as would be expected, the auto dealer loses his battle to remain owner of the reserve. But the case had been one year in the court so the national development effort was delayed by a year.
The Works Ministry then gives the auto dealer the option to demolish the structure on the reserve within eight hours or face the demolition hammer wielded by the Ministry. There has been no demolition because the auto dealer using his vehicles to good effect. He has immobilized some of them so that any attempt at forced removal will result in damage to them and further legal action.
This happens to be one of the high profile cases but there are so many others. All too often the government discriminates. It favours those who openly lend their support to the administration of the day to the extent that the wider society is quick to conclude that there are two different arrangements.
Just this past Monday, the Home Affairs Minister said that he makes no bones to single out the private media house he wants to criticize. He said that he and his party have that right and that people opposed to his action can align themselves to criticize any of those media houses that the government may favour.
In any part of the world the administration would deal condign with illegalities; in Guyana the illegal party, provided it maintains its relationship with the government, could get away with its illegality. Wherein the world could a man use every illegal means to perpetuate his illegality and the authorities allow that to happen?
It has been some time now that people have been demanding that the government nip any illegality in the bud. Guyana has the reputation as a very corrupt country because acts of corruption have been ignored. No one has ever been prosecuted. The government simply does nothing.
The very government cannot escape blame for the perception that this issue with the East Coast Demerara roadway was allowed to escalate because of the friendship issue. But where does this leave the executing agency, the Ministry of Works?
Some say that the Presidential Secretariat holds sway over the final decision and this is why the police refused to act when a Government Minister called them. Had a small man been occupying the reserve the destruction would have been swift.
Indeed, some are always more equal than others and the government perpetuates this belief.

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