Building extravaganza

Jun 24, 2023 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Money is being spent lavishly to put up public buildings and road construction. This is a good thing, and gets better when each additional dollar of the monies set aside for different public works projects is actually spent for the purpose intended, goes into getting the best structure possible. The millions are not being held back, and if Guyanese could only get 50 percent of what is budgeted and awarded for construction purposes, that alone could be considered a major victory, with benefits experienced. Anything upwards of 50 percent would be more of what is positive, and to the betterment of this disadvantaged society.

The biggest awards that were in the news last Thursday totaled $2.8 billion in 58 contracts signed for improvements in Region Three, with road construction leading the way in places like Parfaite Harmonie, Den Amstel, Cornelia Ida, and others.

Eighteen contracts were signed for $1.3 billion to facilitate ‘infrastructural interventions’ in the Soesdyke-Linden Highway neighbourhoods of Yarrowkabra, Kuru Kururu, and Swan. This is all good, as long as the billions are spent on the projects themselves, and do not make their way elsewhere. A noticeable feature of both billion-dollar contract bundles was the presence of new names regarding those who received a contract. And also from last Thursday’s news, $688.1 million in contracts were approved for the rebuilding of the Christ Church Secondary School lost to fire.

In total, close to $5 billion in contracts were awarded for roads and a school. Now, if only residents of those communities, and Guyanese in general, could get the most value for their money, it would be more than a wonderful development. It would represent what is unprecedented in this country, relative to how taxpayers’ dollars have been spent by government after government. The PPP/C Government is lauded for its foresight and spreading the wealth, so to speak. We heard Ministers of the PPP/C Government making warm speeches about vision and how good governance functions, and so on. This is also on the good side.

What is not so much on the good side is when accounting for how those same and other billions were spent becomes an exercise in frustration and futility. In this regard, the track record of the PPP/C Government has been not of the best. Truth be told, it is as bad as can be imagined, with numerous questions left unanswered, many suspicions arising. All we have to do is point to the vital parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which itself has been condemned to the role of a defeated and put-out-to-pasture white elephant.

When the PAC cannot meet due to the lack of a quorum in so many instances, then creeping suspicions gain new traction, and greater strength. How the many millions and billions have been spent and documented, and the results of the audits of such, all have to be reviewed, discussed, and recommendations made for remedial action, if and when such is warranted. But when the PAC is prevented from meeting by one unconvincing tactic after another, then this talk about visions and doing good for Guyanese collapse under the weight of the usual platitudes, all the political perverseness that have been the history of Guyana.

We pinpointed three instances of huge sums for numerous contracts to build in different areas in Guyana. There are many scores of other big contracts for other public works in other parts of Guyana, and involving bridges and wells and other facilities that we must remember. Were the dollars spent on the projects, and how much? What did Guyanese get for their sacrifice, their expectations, on these projects? Who will be held accountable if there are gaps and defects in what is delivered, and how do the Guyanese people know about all of this?

We need and want infrastructure, but our history with what we get leaves considerable anger, disappointment, and the rickety structures that have to be lived with, after all the money spent. We welcome and cheer the billions to be spent, but only when the best is gotten out of them. Unless the usual business involving the usual political ways are different, then it just the same old rottenness on a new day.

building, Editorial, extravaganza, improvements, Region

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