Give incentives to improve the standard of living, manifest proper urban planning

Oct 26, 2021 Letters

Dear Editor,

Thumbs up to members of this government on their recent visits abroad for stating that incentives will be given to foreign investors to come to Guyana, and their willingness to provide an “enabling” business environment. We hope the country clearly benefits in the long and short term, as other countries do, with well-written contracts. However, what is still obviously lacking is the inability to realise that the structural standard of living has to improve as well, for we the people of Guyana and the foreign investors as well.
The same development mistakes are being repeated over and over again. Why, for example, in all these new and developing housing areas are government incentives not given to banks to open small satellite branches, instead of having citizens go all the way to downtown Georgetown (for example, donating lands to banks). There is a reason why a great majority who are robbed at home, by two-legged bandits, end up having to hand over so much cash. Another clear proof of our inability to deal with the simplest of urban planning issues, is the growing ‘taxi lot’ at the entrance of ‘Red Road’, next to the Ramada Princess Hotel. I would bet that in less than a year, ‘Red Road’ as it is called, would be made impassable by the taxi drivers. Bless them all.
Yet, right there in a perfectly positioned spot is a huge multi-plot vacant area that would be suitable for a mini taxi park. Even if that undeveloped land has already been purchased by the Chinese or some other foreign entity or is still owned by the government, why isn’t a portion of that land being made a taxi port? How complex will it be to modify a contract, if that land is owned already? Also competing for prime space there on ‘Red Road’, are increasing numbers of roadside vendors. The outdoor fruit vendors, and the like, have a right to earn their living in the open, after all this is the Caribbean (it’s expected.)
For those in the government who state that roadside vendors who spring up all over the country and set up anywhere and anyhow and must vacate their present workspace. Well, what if they don’t? Exactly what will the government do about it?
Most importantly are incentives for a functioning healthcare support system. No thought in these developing housing areas of donating land (incentives) to investors for small satellite healthcare offices that come with internationally trained medical staff? International travellers we are, but decision makers are still struggling to look at the big picture, and come up with easy solutions for such simple problems. In summary, if we are to provide an ‘enabling’ business environment for foreign investors, it is expected that we provide and improve the standard of living as well, by providing critical incentives. The problem is not with the hardworking folks at the bottom of the economic ladder, but the lack of overall urban planning acumen and focus.

Chi Kansi

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Give incentives to improve the standard of living, manifest proper urban planning

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