A substantial part of Linden would not be able to pay this exorbitant cost

Apr 19, 2015 Letters

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Dear Editor,
The proposed electricity increase in 2012 for Linden/Region #10 that was aborted resulting in the death of three people is clearly resting heavily on the chest of the Government.  Every Minister who visits Linden cannot avoid commenting on it-they always choke on it.  For my part, I’m being very forthright, the implementation of such an increase of bringing us on par with folks in Georgetown and elsewhere will “blackout” Linden!
A substantial part of Linden/Region #10 would not be able to pay such an exorbitant cost-no way!  It means we will have to reserve the use of electricity for Sundays only.  To pay bills, one must not only have a source of income but more-so an adequate income and that is definitely not so for the large majority; a cursory check will reveal the sad reality of unemployment, underemployment and low pay, then you wonder the reason for beating the drum of disparity with what folks are paying elsewhere.
But that doesn’t change the state of affairs in the region or make it any better. The danger and troubling social implication that would be created is not difficult to figure out.   Isn’t it for the very same reason-high electricity cost-that poor people in Georgetown and elsewhere are losing their lives, having been reduced to stealing it.  It is so unfairly beyond their reach.
Oh! let me make haste to say that I’m 101 percent in agreement that Linden residents ought to behave much more responsibly and ought to be more conservative and considerate in their use of electricity at all times.   And by the way I think that Government Ministers ought to stop being brazenly snickering by comparing their paying of bills with that of everyday people; “I too have to pay my bills.” Hell yes! you ought to, your earnings are over and above to take care of that,  and you are not footing your bills simply because of being more responsible and decent than the poor.
It comes over like a mockery when you make such comparison-stop it!   With adequate earnings the working-class man will most certainly honour his responsibilities-he knows this, it’s the way of civilised society where services are paid for through various forms of taxation which the people are obligated to so that the Government treasury keeps afloat and from our natural resources, as they are exploited, those are the main ingredients that sustain a Government.  Governments don’t give! They take! and what sometimes seems a generous gesture by a Government is ultimately the returns that was taken from them in the first place that is being returned in another form, often time when the economy does good-like the “VAT” – and not as gifts or personal hand-outs by the President/Ministers.
Create conditions for people to grow and they will certainly do what is required of them.  Yes, things have changed, yes there was a time when we got electricity dog-cheap but that wasn’t quite an additional burden on the company anyway, also it was a concession and inducement for attracting workers into some intolerable hazardous conditions.
Government/Ministers now say in a most abrupt and callous way “duh time done gone, this is no moe a company town” as if the turbulent years of our contribution– the power supply to various parts of Guyana at no cost, was nothing period, hence the moan and groan persistently about the high cost of subsiding electricity in Linden/Region #10, trying to make us feel guilty, unreasonable, dishonest, like rouges.
Tell me what is/was wrong with incorporating into the deal that a portion of power supply be granted to residents as it was in the beginning, you don’t abandon tradition just like that, which industrial enterprise goes into any nation to amass capital and is allowed to trample  tradition-oh! this is going to cause some problems!   But this “electricity” remains our only and main saving-grace. Left to us at this point, for there is nothing more, repeat nothing more else left intact from the glory days of bauxite, nothing from all those battles, struggled and won with the sweat, blood and sinews of the bauxite workers period in spite of their colossal contribution deep from within the “heart of the mines”.
Dear Editor, do you know that there is nothing standing in honour and memory to bauxite workers in Linden Region #10.  Sooner than later no doubt we will be blotted out and forgotten!   But we paid our dues to this entire nation like a caring father, yes siree!it is only the absolutely ignorant, the totally dishonest and the unconscionable in the community that would say nay.
Had this mining community been located elsewhere the people therein would have been in a no-less propitious state of affairs-different situations different spin-offs, has always been.   And we are not craving any special favours just that we recognised what is.  Editor, let me see if I can fit Mr. Odinga Labumba’s example as an analogy; on the NCN Linden program “Meet the Minister” in asking Lindeners not to abandon the PPP, since much was done for the people and the town, he likened it to a faithful father/husband who took care of every iota  of his responsibilities without fail, was an exemplary father figure in the eyes of his family; then he poses the question: “now if that man came home one night, one night drunk would you walk out and leave him?”
Frank Fyffe

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