What is the use of having wealth and living in squalor?

Jan 03, 2022 Letters

Dear Editor,
Whenever I drive through the littered streets of my neighbourhood, having at some corners, make shift dumps composed of shopping bags bursting with used diapers, “sal bags” tied up with the tins and bottles from someone’s kitchen and all manner of disgusting material I reflect on all the news and hoopla of Guyana’s newfound wealth and how all this money seems only to lead to massive projects and the pockets of large contractors, but never something like garbage collection or nationwide awareness of garbage, what is bio-degradeable and what is not, etc.
I understand that projects are great for the news cycle where a politician can stamp his party, face and smile on the public during a lavish ribbon cutting ceremony. Environmental care is not a project, it is a never-ending job, perhaps this is one of the reasons it never seems to have priority in the agenda of government officials. “This project will create a million jobs”. Not only money is needed but a good quality of life. I can tolerate less wealth if it would mean living in a pleasant, clean and orderly environment. What is the use of having wealth and living in squalor?
I reflect at the Guyana cultural performance at the Dubai Expo, it was centred on the beauty and natural splendor of the country. While watching it, I wondered how the audience would react having then to watch a video detailing the waterways of Guyana being used as a watery dump site. It is shameless to put together such a promo then having no effective environmental policy that deals with refuse and garbage across the country. Nature have given us everything in this country, it is not our accomplishment, we have done nothing to earn it. What can be an accomplishment is tangible gratitude exhibited by preserving and encouraging it.
I live in a housing scheme where there is no garbage collection and no dump site. As a result, some residents just bag their garbage and throw it in the trench, others drop off their garbage from their car on the parapet a street or two away from their own residence. A while back, a neighbouring NDC agreed to send their tractor to pick up garbage that the residents would bag and put in front of their property. It was done as a favour to us because “land rates” were not being collected from us. These “rates” were not collected because the housing scheme is not “handed over” to the NDC. On inquiring from a very senior government official about this and the garbage situation, he admonished us that we have not fully occupied the scheme and thus it cannot be handed over. I don’t know if he thought we were a hive-mind acting in unison. How in the world is the common resident responsible for the occupancy of the community is beyond me. In spite of the occupancy problems, people that want a house lot there cannot get one because they have already been bought by people residing overseas, or in their real homes. When I say “real homes”, many have bought these lands while already owning and occupying property elsewhere, their intention is to turn over these lands for a profit and thus the land remains undeveloped and unoccupied. The criteria for gaining one of these lands was having no other land and establishing a building on the land within a short time. Failure of meeting the criteria, according to the government document, can result in not getting the land or having it repossessed. Up to today I have not seen one of these lands repossessed to give someone with immediate need and the government continues to establish housing schemes enmasse. I understand these things are good for the economy and the contractors, but they create large and enduring problems for the people.
We the people, require the people that are responsible for spending the oil wealth to think deeply about the well-being of the people, not only in terms of projects but in quality of life. The garbage situation is truly a shame on Guyana and all Guyanese.
Concerned Guyanese

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