First funds from the Natural Resource Fund should be spent on massive infrastructure

Dec 19, 2021 Letters

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Dear Editor,

Kaieteur News – I would like to suggest that the first pot of NRF money should be dedicated towards a massive infrastructure plan similar to what President Biden did when he got in. Let’s fix all the roads and bridges! You can call it the ‘Highways to Happiness’ Plan if you want. This can be the tipping point for Guyana. (Tipping point refers to the one thing you can do in a situation, process, or system, that can make such a big, significant,transformational, far-reaching difference that can bring about more unstoppable effects or important changes).
In my recent trip to Guyana, I was so abhorred by the atrocious condition of the roads. I had seen the pictures of new roads being built and thought there was widespread progress, but realised those were just “a drop in the bucket” given the massive road building needs all over the country. Coming from the airport, there were so many potholes right through up to the Bridge area; that road qualifies to be called an “abortion road” as PM Naga had called the road from Parika to the Bendorf area in East Bank Essequibo. I was so ashamed that’s how we welcome visitors to Guyana who would think we have so much oil wealth, but we are a backward place still. (‘Abortion road’ is a term coined to refer to a bad road that causes jerking up when the vehicle travels and if it goes into a hole can induce an abortion for a pregnant woman in a vehicle). Drivers have to bob and weave, dodging holes so as not to fall in a bad hole and damage the rims, axles or damage the bottom of their vehicles. You can hit other vehicles driving in that zigzag manner. But if you want to get where you are going, the situation requires such dangerous driving. I wondered how can ministers who have travelled to and from the airport see those holes, and why would he or she not call the Public Works (and Local Government) Ministers and ask them to send a truck with asphalt right away to patch up the holes. People need to start suing when their vehicles are damaged due to unmaintained roads that pose an ever-present danger to all road users. Many of our roads all over Guyana are religious – they are ‘holey’- and many are ‘abortion roads.’ One engineer told me about 80 percent of our roads are really terrible. From East Coast to Rosignol, there are many potholes. The same problem from New Amsterdam to Crabwood Creek – that road is deteriorating quickly. The only good highway was from Vreed-en-hoop to Parika. We want to be like Dubai, don’t we?
In the villages, almost all the roads need patching and/or paving and repaving. In my village of Whim, all our 32 roads and cross streets need paving. The Whim/Lancaster Road needs to be an all-weather farm-to-market road, as well as the Whim/Auchlyne Ketting Dam. (The PPP always takes Whim for granted and has done very little over the years to pave these roads. They approve shoddy work, and the roads don’t last any time). The same for the road from Parika going to the St. Lawrence area. That’s a productive area and enormous wealth comes out of there in the form of lumber and farm produce. That road needs fixing urgently for those hardworking folks. This is the same story in every village. Mud roads and bad roads predominate. In the villages, almost all the roads are narrow and only one vehicle can travel at a time. If you were coming in from one side and somebody was driving in from the opposite side, somebody better wait, or you would have a long reverse to do. What is needed to make the streets a little wider is to concrete the drains at the side, and let the edge of the roads extend to the concrete sides. Nation, how long will we have to walk and drive in mud, while the oil companies carry away the bulk of our oil money, leaving us some fine change that cannot do much for us? We have US$600 million in the NRF. How many US$ billions did the oil companies make? We have been walking and driving in muddy roads all the days of our lives under the PNC and PPP. Our punishment never ends. Driving on bad roads steal your time and your joy when you have to slow down all the time to dodge potholes and craters, making you late for work and appointments.
Nation, let’s fight for this ‘Highways to Happiness’ Plan as a tipping point strategy! Guyana’s wealth belongs to Guyanese first and foremost. It is our country and our wealth! You may say but Health, Education, Salaries, Pensions, Housing, Agriculture, Crime control, Flood and Sea Defence control, Water Treatment plants, Solid Waste disposal, etc. are important too. And they are. But understand that our leaders of both parties are allowing the oil companies to rape our nation, and we have to go “one day at a time sweet Jesus” to get all these things done. Until the PPP and PNC catch some sense, or until Guyanese nationalists who care, form a new Oil Renegotiation Party to secure renegotiation of the oil contracts, we will not get more money to do all the things we need to do to take us to the promised land. Right now, we are in Babylon not Zion! The working poor are still in purgatory, and we will still be a “rich country of poor people” unless people wake up and take action to improve their lives.

Sincerely,
Dr. Jerry Jailall

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