Contempt: Two streets that tell the story of the Guyana Government

Mar 30, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

When I returned to Guyana in the mid eighties after studies abroad and a short stint with the Maurice Bishop Government in Grenada, I looked for a tailor to alter some of the trousers I brought home. My friend in Barr Street, Kitty introduced me his tailor on the neighbouring street, Shell Road, near the junction with Alexander Street.
Alexander Street in Kitty runs from the Guyoil gas station to the Kitty police station at Sandy Babb Street. On that day when I was introduced to this tailor, Shell Road had huge craters filled with sewage. If a person comes from another planet and read the next two lines to follow, they wouldn’t believe I am writing about a country.
From mid eighties, until a few days ago, that state of that street remained like that. That would be twenty-nine years. The tailor’s name is Chris. And if you talk to that tailor he will tell you that since I met him in the mid eighties, each time I go to him, I would remark about that broken street and the sewage water in the craters.
A business friend of Mr. Anand Sanasie of the Guyana Cricket Board, about ten years ago, bought some property at the junction of Shell Road and Alexander Street. Each time, I go to my tailor, Mr. Sanasie’s friend would jokingly implore; “Freddie, ya’ll fix de street nuh.” Then about ten years ago, another section of Alexander Street became a victim of destruction by inundated sewage water – at Sandy Babb Street just in front of the Kitty Police Station.
Craters developed and sewage took up residence. I stopped going to the DVD shop right at that very spot because your shoes had to touch the sewage. That was ten years ago at Sandy Babb Street. On March 29, 2015 (last night) the PPP held an election rally and two days earlier (Friday afternoon) Shell Road and Sandy Babb Street were fixed. What is the point?
The Government has contempt for this nation. The only reason the roads were fixed was to insulate the PPP from criticism by the Kitty residents. There are two manifestations of depravity here. One is contempt for a nation. The Government knew these two roads and many others like them could have been fixed ages ago but a deep, Freudian disdain for the people of Guyana prevents the PPP leaders from showing generosity and humanity.
Why fix it in 2015 and not 1998? I strongly hold to a theory I have invented and which I am willing to defend in any academic forum. Here it is. The PPP as it became more and more unpopular developed a systematic contempt for the Guyanese people.
Guyana has four (not two or three but four) public swimming pools but none is open to the general public on a first come basis; isn’t this contempt? Presidents and Ministers wake up each morning and would say, “I ain’t got time for them.” The time refers to policies that could benefit the Guyanese people. “Them” refers to the nation.
This contempt will prevent the PPP leadership from opening up even one of those pools.
I recall a humongous crater at the junction of Hadfield Street and Lombard Street. It was dead centre of the junction. That is one of the busiest intersections in this country. There is the permanent rush at that junction because of the nearness to Stabroek Square and it is the main access for traffic coming from the East Bank and West Coast, Demerara into the heart of downtown Georgetown.
To avoid that crater, you had to move in front on oncoming traffic. The madness was all consuming. It affected every driver. That gigantic hole lived for decades and was only fixed when CARIFESTA came. This was unadulterated disdain. The PPP Government filled the hole to please the visitors to Guyana.
The Guyanese people were not in the frame of thinking when the decision was made.
The second dimension of the depravity is the barefacedness in fixing the roads just weeks before an election. This second factor can be looked at as an extension of the first concept of contempt. The leadership sees the Guyanese people as fools so they can fix a road that was in a dying state for almost twenty-nine years just before an election and people can be morbidly naïve as to see them as do-gooders. But who knows.
After last night, some poor lost soul may thank the PPP for the repairs and vote for them.

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