Neglected buildings and a bewildering road project

Nov 14, 2018 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
I go to Georgetown about five times a week and I pass near City Hall constantly. A very close look at that building tells me clearly that that building can collapse at any moment. The posts and ceiling that hold up that building are very weak and rotten. The constant vibration from heavy duty trucks and many heavier vehicles is constantly eroding and weakening the foundation of that building. If something is not done with City Hall building instantly, I am afraid it will soon collapse and many innocent lives will be lost.
To maintain these buildings seems to be of no interest to the past or current administration. Royston King, the current Town Clerk on leave, in an interview on television said it will cost 0.9 Billion dollars to rebuild City Hall – actually a Billion dollars or more estimated.
I give below a brief history of City Hall from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Georgetown City Hall is a nineteenth-century Gothic Revival building located on the corner of Regent Street and Avenue of the Republic in Georgetown, Guyana. The building was designed by architect Reverend Ignatius Scoles in 1887, and was completed in June 1889. The building houses the offices of the Mayor, the City Council, and the City Engineer.
Georgetown City Hall is often described as “the most picturesque structure” and “the most handsome building in Georgetown”, as well as “one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in the Caribbean”. In 1995, the Government of Guyana proposed Georgetown City Hall as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The building currently occupies the status of “tentative listing”.
From that brief history I have quoted I learnt that City Hall is 129 years old, and in that period of time nothing has been done to restore and rehabilitate the pristine beauty of this magnificent architecture. It’s imperative that we preserve what we have or we will lose it.
The High Court is another shabby looking building that needs a facelift and some beautiful paintings. A close look on the outside at the statue of Queen Victoria, one can see one of her arms is missing – maybe it missed our politician’s eyes. The Guyana Post Office building is another eyesore in Georgetown – full of vagrants sleeping and living around it and extremely stink from urine and faeces.
I see some rehabilitation work is being done on St. Georges Cathedral over a year now, but it seems that will take a lifetime and members of that congregation put their lives at risk at the mercy of God, because that building can collapse anytime.
The Bank of Guyana needs to be painted over and many more prominent buildings in the City have become perpetual eyesores.
My father used to tell me: “When a man don’t work to build something he will never value it.’’ The truth in that can be clearly seen at the collapsed state of City Hall, and no one seems to care about it. It’s about time this and other buildings be restored to their former glory by our current administration.
The problems I have seen with this country is we are very lackadaisical and lethargic, we wait until something is completely destroyed then we try to pass a budget to fix it that costs billions, and fills unscrupulous engineers’ pockets, when we could have easily spent thousands to maintain it. I paint my church twice a year and do maintenance, so the building is in top shape.
We try to dig trenches and drains when we are already into floods. We try to fix leaks on the roof when the rains don’t stop and we try to fix our vehicles when the engine ceases to function.
We don’t plan to fail; we fail to plan, thus we have no plan in place when disaster comes suddenly upon us.
A few more lines about the East Coast road – this construction is getting from bad to worse. Daily there are hours of long lines of traffic in the mornings and afternoons. Citizens go to work late. Our kids go to school late. I am wondering if these engineers really know what they are doing. They break and dig up everywhere in front of your homes. You can’t even drive out of your own yard. There are makeshift bridges for the old and elderly.
In my opinion, if they were building this road by 1000 metres length in stages the job would have been long completed, but the engineers have been dragging this work for billions of dollars for very poor quality work and the rainy season is already here.
I am calling on the Ministry of Public Infrastructure to get this East Coast project completed by a deadline. And it’s time we maintain those historic structures we have or we will lose them soon and many lives will be lost by an imminent disaster.
Regards,
Rev. Gideon Cecil

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