Reflections on what Guyana is and should be

Nov 17, 2015 Letters

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Dear Editor,
As a developing nation, our people have through the years longed for things that say we are making progress in, that we are catching up with our neighbours and contemporaries in the Caribbean.  So scarce have been the resources to make public investments in infrastructure and things that uplift the aesthetics of our country that we quibble over what best to pursue.  Our leaders would attest to having taken the utilitarian approach when committing our funds towards investing in public goods, and that sound decisions were made.
But when we, as consumers or intended beneficiaries of these investments, look upon what our tax dollars have been spent on, do we really appreciate or are satisfied with what we get?  Do we ensure that we are part of the process to make these investments worthwhile, and workable?  Are we doing enough as individual public investors and consumers, to stem the waste of public funds and other resources?  Do we get value for our money?  Maybe not, but yet for all that, we continue to lament the absence of other things which we still want, without making the effort to care for what we already have, or to ensure that what we are being given is really what we need.
Investing in public infrastructure is not something we should take lightly.  We have had a history of making bad choices, of being left out of the consultative process, and of being at the receiving end of tokenism.  Despite all of our disappointments, we have had some public infrastructural development that really helped to transform this country for the better, a few of which are the Soesdyke-Linden highway, the Demerara Harbour Bridge and the upgraded Ogle Airport.  Can we imagine a Guyana without these?
And then there are those investments which we have to wonder about, whether all that mattered was to have the funds disbursed, and to tick a box that this or that has been completed, or that another promise has been kept. This month has been designated “Road Safety Month” and I would want to focus on a few investments that were supposed to make our roads safer.  About 13-14 years ago, beautiful, bright street lights were installed along the Rupert Craig Highway on the East Coast.  Nicely engineered and arranged, it was a sight to behold.  This spelt “progress” – Guyana had come of age.  The seawalls along that route literally came alive because of the ambience and safety the lights provided.  They stayed that way for a while, and then when one or two bulbs burned out we left them that way, and then we seemed not to even notice when whole sections of these lights went out and stayed that way.  Was this yet another very valuable investment we allowed to go to waste?
And then there was the return of the traffic lights – the green and red men – another sign of belated modernity.  For some strange reason these bits of infrastructure were placed in spots that all a careless driver had to do was swerve a little too much to the left, and out goes the fixtures or control boxes.  And we also had the bright idea of making some solar-powered, placing the solar panels, inverters and batteries well within hand-reach.  These went even faster than those the mini-bus drivers would rip out from the road sides. And so we are now at a stage where we probably have more non-functioning traffic lights than working ones.
There is one particular case of public wastage in this regard, that stands out for me.  For the past eight years I have been a frequent traveller on the West Demerara highways.  There is a set of traffic signals at the Vreed-en-Hoop junction, which, for all of those years I cannot recall ever seeing working.  When I first saw them, they made me wonder for a moment if I was somewhere else.  I counted the signal fixtures, and there were fourteen (14) in all, nicely constructed and positioned, each one an important piece for safe use of the road.  Yet, none seemed to ever work.
That particular junction at Vreed-en-Hoop says a lot about our values and how we live as a nation.  If there ever is something that can be described as “thriving in confusion”, you can find it all there at that junction.  The roadway in the intersection is damaged, with water-filled potholes.  The roads themselves are the very means for drainage of rainwater.  When it rains, your feet can stay dry only if you walk in the middle of the road. Drivers jostle, dangerously fighting for space to turn and get on their way.  In the midst of all this, vending of every sort takes place at the very edge of the roads, and minibus and taxi drivers stop in the middle of the road to collect or let off passengers.  Above all of this confusion towers the traffic lights on which millions must have been spent, and from which we as consumers of public goods, never ever got the intended benefits.
A little further south along the West Bank Demerara road, is a recently constructed market tarmac, its only use being as a home for a couple of forlorn donkeys.  Public funds spent on all these useful things, not one in use.  And yet for all that, we lament that enough has not been done.  You ask anyone there, and you can literally get a hundred things that they feel the government can do better.  But what have they, the people who dwell, work and traverse that area, done with what has been built for them?  How many have taken the time to find out what went wrong and if corrections can be made?  Has anyone demanded that these things be made to work? Are these just a few more cases of over-reliance on government, a throw-back to a bygone socialist era?
Until we, as individuals and as a nation, learn to take social responsibilities more seriously, we will not be able to hold our grasp on the progress we make.  We need to see our individual contribution as more pivotal than the blind trust, reliance and faith we put in government.  If we continue down the present, well-beaten path, we are well on our way to becoming a welfare state. We need to value the potential of community / social activism, however mild that can be.  We need to see ourselves not as mendicants or minions, but as having a more profound role in building communities and in taking social ownership of the things put there to make our lives, communities and country better
Khemraj Tulsie

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