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Outrage over Govt’s move to build structures on Ground
…City Hall instructs halt to works
The structure that was being built by the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports
Kaieteur News – Georgetown Mayor Alfred Mentore on Thursday instructed city engineers to stop the construction of two pavilions and a washroom facility on Parade Ground, near the 1823 Demerara Revolt Memorial site.
The structures were being constructed under the instruction of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport. Mentore, in the company of former prime minister and mayor of Georgetown Hamilton Green, Deputy Mayor Denise Miller, City Councilor Lelon Saul and members of the Coalition for the 1823 Monuments told reporters that the construction must be halted.
He disclosed that he contacted the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport Charles Ramson via WhatsApp on the matter but is yet to receive a response. “This kind of a scenario is not welcomed by the Mayor and City Council of Georgetown. Only last week or there about at our statutory meeting we made representation about this matter,” the mayor said. The mayor said that Guyanese are fed up with “this aggression, people fed up with the interference and the micromanagement of this government…”
He also made it clear that the construction will not continue and said the ministry should not have built the facilities without the approval of the City Council. “We are here today to stake our claim, to speak about this issue, to speak about this abuse and to let it be known that we are not happy with this,” Mentore told reporters. Mayor Mentore said that the construction should have been done with consultation and some form of collaboration. “So we will have to take a stand and the only other thing if they don’t act on this I might be tempted to drive one of the Council’s excavators in this place and knock down this thing. I might be tempted to do that,” he said.
Similarly, Deputy Mayor Miller said the Mayor and City Council was not made aware of the plan to construct the facilities. “Councilor Saul and myself came here day before yesterday (Tuesday) and we saw the post going up and we enquired again but as you can see we are dealing with an administration who doesn’t have any regards for anybody,” Miller told reporters.
The Deputy Mayor said, “if a government don’t believe in inclusiveness and consultation, it therefore means a government of disrespect.” Miller mentioned that the ground is a sacred ground that is used by African groups for worship and to communicate with their ancestors. She said, “if something like that monstrosity standing up there and that concrete there,” the sacred privileges will not be granted. “It is not that we don’t want development but you do development in tandem with the Mayor and City Council who controls the city, and that hasn’t been happening for the longest while. I am peeved, I am hurt, and I feel disrespected as a person of African descent,” Miller said.
Former mayor of Georgetown Hamilton Green said the enslaved were beheaded and placed on poles at Parade Ground. “They were rounded up, their heads cut off, and put on poles, their blood bleeding on this ground and as the descendants of those slaves, we have a duty to preserve it as sacred ground to honour our ancestors,” Green shared.
President of the Coalition for the 1823 Monuments, Sister Penda Guyan, who raised the issue recently, said the coalition may be forced to take legal action if the government persists with the project. Meanwhile, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo during his weekly press conference said that he agrees that some historical sites should be treated with sensitivity. Focusing on the 1823 Monuments, the Vice President said “that is a special place for us because that’s where… it’s a sad area where people were displayed… during slavery; and so, I agree with treating that site with sensitivity.”
Noting that the Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) government has fulfilled its promise to install lights at the location the Vice President said that it is important that consultations be had before any modification is done on historical sites.
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