Presidential garden, Magistrate’s Court and the countdown to the big 50

Apr 03, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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It would not be a fair comment to lay the blame on the APNU-AFC Government for the horrible decline in state services, abysmal social development and infrastructural collapse. In all fairness, that administration is a mere ten months old. You cannot seriously attribute non-functioning mortuaries all over Guyana to the present Government. A letter-writer in this newspaper pointed out that the West Demerara Hospital is without the common sugar-testing diabetes machine. That is a serious indictment of a political party that held the reins of power for twenty-three years.
The ten-month-old administration is expected to approach social and infrastructural projects using a different methodology and ideology. For example, it is unthinkable that the current leadership would support a similar construction like the Marriott, even if it is not in the form of a hotel. The indications are however, that vision is yet to show its presence in the halls of APNU-AFC power. The cleaning up of Georgetown and efforts at the moment to bring it back to its pristine self, seems to be the only vision on display.
There are troubling moments. The argument for removing the fire station from the horrific traffic congestion of the Stabroek Market Square is pure common sense. There have been opinions since the presidency of Desmond Hoyte, that the huge tracts of land lying next to Homestretch Avenue should house the fire service. I would like to see a citizen of this country reject the idea that the relocation of the Stabroek fire service should not be a priority. The landscaping of Merriman Mall to house a presidential garden where the busts of all the past and the present presidents will be installed is nearing completion. A prodigious sum is being spent on the Homestretch project but it will be another ceremony site like the presidential garden. Unfortunately, the fire service lost.
What about the construction of buildings that bring service to the nation; that are essential for people’s well-being? In my opinion, the money for the presidential garden and the Homestretch project should have been spent on the Stabroek fire service relocation. To my mind, the Homestretch area is almost perfect a home for the Stabroek fire engines. It is a valuable opportunity that has been cast aside by the APNU-AFC regime. Could all this landscaping around Georgetown to accommodate ceremonial events be another manifestation of the twisted logic of post-colonial failure?
It was announced by the Government that money is not there to replace the Camp Street prison. But money is there to create a presidential garden and another National Park at Homestretch Avenue. And three hundred million is there to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Independence. It goes back to the emphasis on pomp and splendour in the immediate post-colonial period, a colonial relic that has become embedded in the psyche of post-colonial leaders.
Why is this government rebuilding from scratch the Sparendaam Magistrate’s Court rather than put the money into the many projects the Georgetown Hospital has? Why not put that money into the Georgetown Hospital itself? The Georgetown Hospital does not have a basic eye device that was invented since the late eighties – the Tono-Pen. It is the exact size of a pen, costing about 200 American dollars. It is used to measure intraocular pressure. The Georgetown Hospital ascertains intraocular pressure using the tonometer.
Why not put the money that will be used to rebuild the Sparendaam Magistrate’s Court to rehabilitate the Alberttown fire station? The building is an eye sore. Putting out fires is more important than erecting a new magistrate’s court to house someone whose only task each day is to jail the poor and powerless?  Why a magistrate’s court? Because this is the nature of the post-colonial world. It goes back to the famous theory of Hamza Alavi of the “Overdeveloped State.”
Alavi argued that the post-colonial leadership inherited an overdeveloped, coercive state machinery that was invaluable to the colonial hegemony. The coercive state apparatus had to be large and coterminous with the society. It is quite logical in the thinking of the post-colonial Leviathans to have a strong, extensive state machinery. Not to mention the large official buildings that had to accompany it.
We are in the countdown stage to the 50th anniversary of Independence. There is no question state funds will be used to recreate the pomp and splendour that characterized the early years of hegemony in the Third World after Independence was granted in the fifties and sixties. But why go back to such recent times? Long, long ago, the Romans loved their pomp and splendour.

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