LGE 2018 is an opportunity for citizens to stand up, raise their voices and be heard

Nov 06, 2018 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
LGE (Local Government Elections) 2018 is an opportunity for citizens to stand up, raise their voices and be heard. For citizens across Guyana, in the 80 Local Authority Areas (LLAs), including Georgetown, their votes can stop APNU+AFC’s sinister plan to increase property taxes.
The beleaguered citizens of Georgetown face not only the threat of increased property taxes, they also have to fear the Parking Meter monster that the APNU+AFC-dominated Mayor and City Council (M&CC) is determined to implement. Implementation of parking meters in Georgetown will also affect thousands of citizens from outside Georgetown who visit the city for business, work, education, health and recreation.
Make no mistake, an APNU-dominated M&CC will implement increased property taxes, parking meters, residential garbage collection fees, container and environmental fees for businesses that will suffocate Georgetown.
The PNC-dominated M&CC is only interested in collecting more money from citizens, offering minimal and sub-standard services, while being totally unaccountable. This is the choice voters in Georgetown must make. Do we vote to stop these absurd, suffocating policies and corruption or do we vote to allow the M&CC to add to the agony of Georgetown?
Citizens in Georgetown have before them a clear and unequivocal choice. The choice cannot be loyalty to a political party or to race and ethnicity. The choice must be catalyzed by policies and performance.
The abovementioned policies will make living in Georgetown more expensive for residents and increase cost of operating businesses in the city, stifling businesses and reducing employment. Every single citizen will be negatively impacted.
Policies aside, the performance of the PNC-dominated M&CC for the last more than fifty years must worry citizens. For more than 50 years now, they have betrayed citizens, with Georgetown the most beleaguered, dirtiest CARICOM city.
The present COI into the performance of the M&CC is shocking, exposing even worse incompetence, mismanagement and possibly corruption. Loyalty to political party and/or race and ethnicity must not mask the truth – the M&CC and their political bosses have used Georgetown as a personal playground, benefiting themselves at the expense of citizens. Enough is enough, citizens must end the travesty.
Nothing exposes the incompetence, mismanagement and corruption as the management of sanitation and garbage in Georgetown. On top of the mountains of garbage, the M&CC want to implement a garbage collection fee for all residents. Meanwhile, garbage collection haulers have threatened another strike. The garbage haulers are owed more than $150M presently. This is not a new crisis; it is happening two to three times every year.
Before 2015, the PPP Central Government always stepped in and made the payment to avert the strike. Since 2015, the stoppage of garbage collection and the consequent garbage pile-up occur because APNU+AFC prefers for citizens to wallow in stink before any support is given. But buckle-up, expect another strike soon after LGE 2018 if the PNC-dominated M&CC were to retain their dominance.
Another clear example of incompetence and mismanagement relates to the overall management of drainage in Georgetown. Not only are drains chronically clogged and require frequent central government intervention, but sluices and drainage pumps are chronically inoperable. Sluices often cannot be opened and every time there is heavy rainfall the majority of pumps are inoperable because of missing parts or non-availability of fuel.
These are significant issues that citizens must answer before they vote. It is time that citizens choose their own welfare and the welfare of a great city in front of choosing loyalty to a political party and race and ethnicity.
LGE 2018 is an opportunity to choose wisely and to stand up for the city of Georgetown. The clear choice, the wise choice, is to end the PNC hegemony in Georgetown.
Dr. Leslie Ramsammy

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