A strange thing, but then again, Guyana is a strange place

Apr 15, 2018 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

When I was small, I would accompany relatives to pay the light-bill at the GPL office on Main Street. Next to the GPL building was a huge empty lot right at the western corner of Main and New Market Streets. For more than fifty years now that empty plot of land sat down there. And it is there on to this day. It fascinates me why anyone or any company would keep a valuable piece of real estate unused for over fifty years. But over the past three decades, the tale of this empty space got more intriguing.
There was a sign, a long, long time ago put up on the land that informs lookers that it is owned by Continental Group of Companies. Now it is interesting to note that while that lot was unoccupied, the company got a huge piece of public land directly opposite the Botanical Gardens as part of the privatization process of the Economic Recovery Programme of the Hoyte presidency at concessionary price. The owners planned a hotel and resort complex.
Mr. Hoyte lost power since 1992; make that 25 years ago and that plot remains as unoccupied as the piece on Main and New Market Streets. The story becomes further interesting when you get to know that the Continental Group is half owners of Citizens’ Bank along with Banks DIH. I appeared in front of the Lands Commission last October (see my column of October 6, 2017) and recommended that because the plot opposite the Botanical Gardens was given at concessionary rate (way, way, way below market value) and no structure has gone up since it was acquired in 1988, then it should be repossessed by the state.
My curiosity is that Citizens’ Bank built a new structure on the crowded junction of South Road and Camp Streets, why not at the New Market/Main Street site? I have absolutely no interest in that vacant plot, but I just figured that it is strange that a company would keep an empty plot for over half a century, thus the reason for its mention here. On every occasion when I pass these places, I think of how odd a country Guyana is. I drive along Homestretch Avenue quite often and the mystery of Guyana just stares you in the face.
If I were President of Guyana, one of my first acts would be to move the fire station from its present crazy location to Homestretch Avenue. It is inexplicable that presidents Burnham, Hoyte, Cheddi and Janet Jagan, Jagdeo, Ramotar (and now Granger) had never seen how deeply silly it is to retain the fire station at the overcrowded Stabroek Market Square. Just being at that site and looking at the fire station the thought overtakes your mind that this is a country that has lacked and continues to be deficient in leadership qualities.
One of the prodigious disappointments I have had with this government that has caused me to dissolve my respect and admiration of it is the construction of D’Urban Park. That was a morbidly shortsighted journey. I pass the place every day, and when I look at it, please believe me, its unoccupied presence just reminds me of an invasion by wood-ants. I believe at the time of its construction and still believe that it was a waste of time, effort and precious space. Just look at it now; it stands unoccupied and reminds one of the vicious, relentless Naipaulian critiques of post-colonial failure.
Some idiotic mind will rush to the defence of the government and shout that it was not state funds that built it. Two responses are apt. First, the country’s leadership has admitted that, it was built by generous donors whose names it cannot disclose. Are there humans out there that accept that explanation? Donors cannot give to you things that are not on your list of priorities.
When I worked as an advisor to the Maurice Bishop Government in Grenada, I pleaded with Foreign Minister, Unison Whiteman to reject the donation of an ice factory from Bulgaria. Because of its capacity to produce more ice than the island could use, it was a waste of equipment, which would become obsolete because it would have been laid up for weeks after the initial production.
All the government had to do was to tell the donors that it would accept an extension and rehabilitation of the National Park. But how could they? Since unthinking leaders have no ideas, others will make decisions for them. Secondly, public funds did go into the building of D’Urban Park. It was a waste of much needed dollars.

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