H@rd Truths By GHK Lall – Floods, a national embarrassment, LGE a national joke

Apr 26, 2023 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

---

Kaieteur News – For a capital city, this is what Guyanese have, lived with, have endured forever.  It is Friday, April 21^st.

From Lamaha Street’s edge to about Sussex Street 90% of the roads of Georgetown were under about a foot of water. The bare black spots signaling asphalt were as rare as an oasis in the Sahara. Literally. The busy New Market Street entrance of the GPHC, with its concentration of people going to and fro, was 100% underwater.  This is at an address that has to deal with thousands of citizens daily.  This is Guyana, oil rich Guyana, and it is a sinkhole, reduced to a virtual rathole. This is our national shrine, our home.  I hate myself for having to say it, but somebody has to say this -let’s all look in the mirror, we all have a share in this national embarrassment (voters, politicians).

Seven years after oil’s first discovery, this is where Guyana’s most populated, most energetic, most seen and walked city stands in miserable waterlogged wretchedness.  Almost 5 years of PNC governance and almost 3 years of PPP rulership, and this is what our flagship capital looks like after a hard, driving, torrential rain.  During those years, the PNC bashed the PPP, and the PPP has been only too glad to return the favor with gusto since its return.  The Local Government Ministry rubs the nose of City Government into the dust, and City Government is reduced to futile pawing of the air.  Nothing moves, except the garbage occasionally, the municipal markets reflexively and, of course, the rainwater, as it inches upwards.  When the spirit moves him, Excellency Ali rolls up his sleeves and manhandles a shovel or garbage bag.  It’s good for a lush photo moment, good politics, good idea, but bad for city residents and visitors. Utterly bad, inconceivably bad. Think drainage, roads in a state of disrepair in swaths, stench, much more.

But we are all storm and fury already about this melodrama that is known as Local Government Elections (LGE).  For what objectives, may I ask? With what pluses for residents?  What distinguishing features than before? Through the car window I watched the broad rivers and long lakes that was Guyana’s capital on Friday, April 21^st, and I reminded myself that Guyanese are the richest people globally.  I should be happy.  We have the fastest growing economy, and I must keep an eye and an ear out for an engine stall.  Yes, the water was that high, the anxiety that palpable.  Given that this is the contradictory state of the national economy, Guyana is like a man with all the money in the world, but one who has no teeth.  He can’t smile when the world rushes to his door and feet, and he can’t eat.

Whoever wins this unfolding LGE farce, and after the squabbling is over, is sure to talk about studies, the Dutch, pumps, and koker operators.  If city residents hit the jackpot, they might hear talk about a program of sustained drainage works to keep them flowing, to clear the runoff in times of heavy rain.  In all this, there is one common characteristic: talk.  Talk about what the PNC should have done, but didn’t do, if the PPP fails to bring Georgetown under the control of Freedom House.  This would be a signal for the resumption of Local Government Ministry machinations and shenanigans in the city.  On the other hand, if the PPP did upset the betting boards (not an outside shot), it would be more of the same big talk about improvement plans in a variety of municipal areas.  There would be a special vision in mind to deal with rains, floods, and all the foolishness and frivolousness that have plagued the capital city for years.  We shall see, but this I have to say frankly.

Any national leader with a hint, just a speck, of leadership and personal respect about him would commit unswervingly to address this embarrassing state of flooding once and for all.  Just get the job done, and if that means that the cooperation of the PNC has to be had, then let it be worked out.  For sure, it is going to cost a treasure house of cash, but just do it.  Unless the plan is to wait until the high new city is built 5-10 years hence.

As I offer these things, there is the understanding that two negatives are in play, one favorable to the PPP, the other not, and what has featured prominently in its exercises.  First, a huge amount of money will be required to alleviate the flooding woes in the city, which means that a lot of money will end up in the wrong pockets.  Unfortunately, that is simply a necessary, unavoidable, insurmountable evil in Guyana.  Absorb the charge and move along, it is the cost of politics, government.  The second is that Georgetown is predominantly PNC, so that could be a showstopper for any substantial flood works that holds out the best chance to cure what is a Stone Age situation.  Maybe it is the Ice Age, one that is melting, with Georgetown as the reservoir basin that collects the runoff.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

---

• Floods, GHK Lall, GPHC, H@rd Truths, Sussex Street

---