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Downtown Georgetown must be one of the grimiest, most unsafe, and lawless capitals in the Caribbean
Dear Editor,
Something has to be considerably wrong at the Georgetown City Council that needs to be urgently fixed. Just about two years ago the Town Clerk and a team of his heavies descended upon and demolished a premises situated at ‘A’ Water Street, Russell Square, Stabroek Market.
This act of destroying the structure was brutally done even though the property was the subject of a matter engaging the attention of the Court and consequently this action was considered by many legal luminaries to be unlawful and a show of complete disrespect and disregard for the Court of Appeal of Guyana.
What was most egregious was the fact that the Council had granted permission and leased the said property to ‘Rasta Man’ for more than three decades and had continuously levied rates and taxes and charged cleansing fees for the occupation of this location, even though the Ministry of Public Infrastructure had claimed jurisdiction over the area upon which the shop sat, yet still without warning they demolished the property.
Having committed this act of unnecessary savagery, one expected that the area would have been kept clear and clean or the replacement would have been some aesthetically pleasing edifice, but alas! No such thing.
Instead what we have now in its place, is an ugly, unhealthy, unsafe, unkempt tent city. Sprung up there over the last two years has been a squalid shanty facility that is teeming with illegal activities and a complete eyesore to foreign and local visitors to the downtown area. As the boys would say it is just ‘stink and dutty’.
When will the Georgetown Municipality understand what it takes to develop the tourism industry in Guyana? Is this how they are preparing for Guyana’s Carnival? This is what they mean by serving the city and advancing the nation?
The downtown area of Georgetown, particularly at night, must be one of the grimiest, most unsafe, disordered and lawless capitals in the Caribbean.
And this is in spite of the fact that the King and Queen of the City continue to dole out cleaning and other contracts worth tens of millions of dollars to their close relatives, friends and cohorts.
Why doesn’t this present group of Councillors who will be demitting office in another few months not understand that all good men and women must take responsibility to create legacies that will take the next generation to a level we could only imagine? Are they going to allow a few venal municipal administrators to destroy their legacy?
Laquisha Kaftans
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