Impact of road closure for parliament

Nov 04, 2017 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
I have penned this important letter in order to bring awareness to those in high offices about the suffering of citizens when closing off roads in the busiest district in the country. I have noticed that whenever there are parliament sessions, the government authorizes the closure of major roadways to facilitate the sessions. The previous administration used to do the same, but somehow, for the last year, the impact is heavily noticed in the capital city by the mass inconvenience never experienced before.
Georgetown is by far the largest municipality in Guyana and around Parliament is the busiest section, hence we can safely say that, the Government is willing to close off the busiest district in the entire country to facilitate parliament.
The impact of the closure is tremendous from an economic perspective. Thousands of citizens plying their daily trade are affected. Not only vendors, but the entire transportation sector in this area is forced into chaos. When transportation is affected, the thousands of commuters are also affected. When thousands of commuters are affected, businesses will lose thousands of sales.
Employees will reach to work late and here again thousands of labour hours are lost. Vehicles spend 10 times the time in lines, hence 10 times gas usage, which means the importation gas bill will also increase. There is a massive spinoff into other sectors that are affected from an economic standpoint. The economic loss for a single day in parliament would near one billion dollars for the country and this would multiply by the number of days the parliament is held. Guyana being a small country can do a lot with three billion if parliament is in session for three days.
Is the country in a position to lose one billion a day from these sessions? Our country is in a sorry state already with dwindling jobs and businesses, almost in a recession. To compound this agony, the kings and queens in Parliament are willing to further lose billions from these parliamentary sessions by closing off the busiest streets. This shows that they are not in touch with the population and further, not very competent in understanding the impact of lost billions for the country. Egos are so high that they will see this letter as criticizing rather than educating.
I don’t see the need to close off any roadway as a matter of fact, just educate the traffic ranks to use their intelligence. No one wants to assassinate parliamentarians, even the President can walk without bodyguards without fear. Secondly, there is no sensible reason to lose billions for simple discussions in Parliament. These discussions can be held elsewhere where there is no disruption in the traffic.
Other countries have relocated their entire capital cities when governmental affairs become a burden to the infrastructure of one city. So why not relocate parliament, after all, the business of parliament is to discuss a vibrant economy and better life for the citizens, but it seems the other way around in Guyana.
Sonia Misir

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