Turkey earthquake

Feb 14, 2023 Editorial

Kaieteur News – In Turkey, more than 28,000 citizens lost their lives from the devastating 7.5 Richter scale earthquake that struck while they were sleeping. Now they sleep the deep, perhaps tortured, sleep of those who knew nothing of the fate that crept on stealthy, darkened feet to their beds. Or that which caught them in the consciousness of the first terrors of what was coming from below their feet, the great extinguishment that hovered over their heads. Now, officials in hard hit Turkey take stock, grapple for answers, even as they comb through the mountainous piles of rubble.

What went wrong during the full fury of nature’s destructive force? Who is responsible, could have mitigated the loss of life, the destruction to property that it may have been possible to minimize? How is it that 80,000 buildings collapsed into a pile, sounded the death knell of so many? Who must now pay for some of what could have been possibly avoided?

The questions, the tolls, the human sufferings are all more unpalatable, when it is noted that Turkey already has some very strict building codes in place, at least on paper. Since such protective codes exist, it boggles the mind that so many thousands of lives, buildings, were snuffed out so swiftly. These are the higher profile questions that Turkish officials are determined to get answered. Senior officials are already on the move, and 130 building contractors either have been arrested, or warrants have been issued for their detention.

If the actions of one contractor are any indication, some fear that their construction work will not stand up to rigorous scrutiny. One contractor was arrested as he was about to board a plane for an international destination. He was the man in charge of the construction of a 12-story luxury building in Antakya, a city of history, but which now look forever lost. Public anger ,sharp and fierce, have been directed at officials and builders, which left the former no choice but to go after the 130 contractors named to date, with more likely to be added to that large list.

Who paid whom before this disaster? Who is going to try to pay off anyone now? Who will risk accepting what functions as the usual culture of officials, elected and selected, in countries all over the world? It is going to take a lot of nerve, and even more brazenness, to overlook more than 28,000 dead, with more to come, and so much destruction of property, both catastrophes unequalled in recent times.

With this as context, our attention turns to Guyana, where structural failures are nothing new. The one saving grace here is that lives have not been lost here. There have been collapsed sea defences, collapsed roads, and other costly infrastructural works that have collapsed from time to time, with almost zero accountability. First, Government leaders make speeches about no sacred cows and no untouchables. Then, Government ministers join the chorus of their leaders claiming to be concerned and angry over shoddy or failed public works. Next, senior Government bureaucrats step forward to participate in the dance party celebrating zero tolerance, and none being exempt from the arm of the law and penalties.

The reality is that when all the flowery words have been delivered, Guyanese are still stuck in the same dark place of billions of their tax dollars spent, but with less to show for it. The danger in Guyana is not so much about collapsed buildings, but of politicians who have collapsed under the crushing weight of their individual corruptions, which leaves ordinary citizens sick, wounded, and furious. This has been true for governments led by the PPPC, the PNCR, and the APNU+AFC. To this day, nobody has been arrested and made an example of, ordered by the courts to pay, or jailed for a lengthy period. No infrastructural contractor, no vital supplies vendor, no political figure has had to face their fate, so that longsuffering Guyanese can get some justice, some little value for their tax money wasted. It would be an outstanding development to observe some politicians and public officials called to account for their mismanagement of oil, and have the book thrown at them.

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earthquake, Editorial, Government, PPPC, Turkey

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