Rain water and ignorance in the sewage system

Sep 29, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

The President of Guyana is not the target of harsh criticism from the media and political observers which he should be; a situation that would not happen in another country in the world. The President heads a party named the People’s National Congress. It has 21 of the 30 seats in the Georgetown City Council. There are five seats for other parties and four councillors come directly from the Alliance for Change –Messrs Jaikarran, Persaud, Goring and Duncan. Twenty-one seats in a 30-seat municipality is a landslide.
The newly elected Georgetown municipality is doing nonsensical, undemocratic and unacceptable things. The party in power in the City Council is headed by David Granger. Mr. Granger is beyond reproach. He is a decent human being. But though egregious political mistakes have not been committed by him in his personal and presidential capacities, he has an obligation to the citizens of Georgetown to rein in the wild cards in his party that are marauding all over Georgetown and whose bravados are shaped by an unelected Town Clerk.
This columnist believes that if municipal elections for the capital are held tomorrow even with the personal involvement of Mr. Granger, his party would lose. It is that bad. I seldom look at television but for some unknown reason, I slumped in the Berbice chair in front the idiot box on Tuesday night and caught one of the local newscasts. There were two items on the City Council.
One was a letter written to the Mayor by the Minister of Communities about the Town Clerk’s action in evicting the Robb Street vendors. It was an interesting correspondence for two reasons.
First, the Town Clerk’s action was deemed illegal. Secondly, the Minister chastised the Mayor for her support for such illegalities. Immediately after quoting from the Minister’s letter, the anchor moved on to an interview with the Deputy Mayor, Sherod Duncan. The most intriguing aspect of that interview was Mr. Duncan’s enumeration of the failed projects of Mr. King and his conclusion that based on that negative balance sheet, the Town Clerk should be removed.
As a political commentator, I share that view. I honestly feel that in the post 2015 horizon where freedoms should be more guaranteed, that the Guyanese people expect, there is no place for the mentality of a Royston King. Throughout the entire territory of Guyana within the local government system, Mr. King stands out as the most undemocratic and arrogant official. And this is within a local government system whose cities, townships and NDCs have PPP leaders at the top of the hierarchy. Yet they do not behave as bull-headed as Mr. King.
In his letter that I have seen read out on the newscast, the Minister pointed out to the Mayor that Mr. King is an administrator of the Council whose duties are to act on the decisions of the Council. It was a timely reminder to the Town Clerk that he is an officer who does not make policies but carries out the administrative dimensions of policies adumbrated by the City Council.
In which city in the entire world, the executive officer of the City Council has refused to submit a contract he entered into with an investor to the elected leadership of that Council? Once ordered to produce the document, he has to. That is not realpolitik; that is not pragmatic politics; that is legal politics.
The CEO of any public sector institution has to produce a contract once the board requests it. The Permanent Secretary has to produce a document if the Minister wants it. Mr. King is at it again. He wants all the rain water that pours down onto the roof of your house to run into the sewage system. I am not an engineer but I can tell you what I grew up with. The guttering on the roof of the house leads to a pipe which takes the rainwater into the gutters, alleyways and trenches eventually into the rivers and the Atlantic.
That is what I have grown up with. Mr. King wants the pipe that leads from your roof to go into the gully that is in your yard so it can enter the sewage system just like your toilet, bathroom and kitchen water. During the heavy rainy season, wouldn’t that be an enormous burden on the city’s sewage system? Why not the gutters, alleyways and trenches that runs alongside your house? Isn’t the water going into those waterways when it rains?
I end with a question – shouldn’t Mr. King have consulted stakeholders before he issued his edict?

4 thoughts on “Rain water and ignorance in the sewage system”

Keith Williams September 29, 2016 at 3:50 pm

Over the 28 years the PNC has been out of power, it has been taken over by people who are particularly obtuse, terribly backward, and in fact even worse than their counterparts in the PPP. They are blind to any reality that do not comport with their distorted perspective. Burnham has to be turning over in his grave as he witness what his party has become.
19CAGriffith48 September 29, 2016 at 9:27 pm

“I am not an engineer but I can tell you what I grew up with. The guttering on the roof of the house leads to a pipe which takes the rainwater into the gutters, alleyways and trenches eventually into the rivers and the Atlantic.”

Frederick, how could you not remember we played/swan in those gutters during the rainy season ?
The Wortmanville street and alleyway gutters ran west into the Louis Row trench then ran south into the Princess Street trench before moving westwards towards the Demerara River after the koker at St.Stephen’s & Princess Street is opened.

My brother, continue to educate the uninformed and out-of-towners how our once beautiful and now blighted city once functioned.

In closing and on a personal note, if offered a gig by any member of the standing Government, do not accept it as it would be an attempt to silence you from exposing the daily crap that flows above street level.
Besides, you like the Kingston Lighthouse, is the only tower with a bright light that guides those of us who are in the diaspora.

Stand tall and strong .
God Bless !
GAG.
Muhammad Raoof September 29, 2016 at 9:41 pm

A person cannot be considered decent and honorable when the said person is surrounded by those who are corrupt and perform corrupt acts; and remains silent. Silence and covering up and making excuses for those who are corrupt, makes one complacent in the (corrupt) acts.
RLSG September 29, 2016 at 9:59 pm

Mr. King needs to be reigned and should be fired for his crazy out of control antics. Mr. Granger indeed is a decent man. He does not realize that politics is a contact sport and his personality does not correspond to the thrust and parry of governing. His weird ‘stand offish leading from behind’ style does not mesh with the ‘down and dirty gutter’ style of politics for which Guyana has been accustomed. He has to show that he is in charge … if he does not in four years he will be just another failed memory with a missed opportunity. Is he asleep and not aware of what is happening under his own nose or does he need a new pair of glasses ? Wake up Mr. Granger … stop fiddling while the country burns !!!