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Jun 22, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
Don’t you find it funny when you read statistics about – how many schools there are in Guyana compared to when the PNC was in power; how many healthcare centers have been opened up compared to when the PNC was in government; how many infrastructural facilities have been built like new roads and wharves that didn’t exist for the 28 years of PNC rule? There is of course some crucial information about these so-called achievements that when in possession of the average citizen, tell a pitiful tale of the failure of leadership in the present government.
It should be asked how much finance for these glowing additions came from the Treasury of the Government of Guyana of which the PPP has been in control for seventeen years. The money came from borrowing and aid. Water supply was financed by the British.
The reform of security is going to be financed by the British. Do you know the radar guns only came into use by the police after the British donated 36 of them? And now the initial set of breathalyzers was given as a gift too. The question must be asked is, if we didn’t get those radars free would we have ever had them in use on the roadways? The IDB literally bankrolls this country.
Health centers across the country; the expansion of the Georgetown Hospital; a majority of the schools that have gone up since 1992, bridges and new roads have all been financed by the IDB.
There is no shame on the part of the Government of Guyana when it comes to begging for money. Why can’t this “great democractic country” as the PPP Government refers to Guyana, generate wealth on its own after seventeen years of the disappearance of the PNC Government which we are told was broke?
The Ministry of Home Affairs solicited US$3 million, yes a mere $3 million American dollars to run an urban education programme for unemployed youths. When the IDB put conditions on the disbursement, there was a huge cuss down with Mrs. Jagan leading the way in her Mirror column. You wonder what is there on the planning table of this regime that it intends to finance from the purse of Guyana. The GPL resuscitation is being done through IDB funds.
It wasn’t Freddie Kissoon that wrote of the crumbling infrastructure of the University of Guyana. That was a quote in bold headlines from the new UG Vice-Chancellor on the third page of Saturday’s Stabroek News. Why is it crumbling? Because the IDB hasn’t come to its rescue.
Citizens must be aware that the Berbice Bridge couldn’t get started because the IDB was solicited for the funding and it refused. For almost two years, the Government shopped around for a builder of the bridge. The price of many companies was beyond the reach of the Government. Instead one can say the Government built the bridge itself; NIS money went a long way into making the crossing a reality. And then the result was the barest of bridges.
It was comical to see what the Guyana Times did at the official opening of the Berbice Bridge. It ran a supplement on the watery edifice but included only one photograph of another structure. It was strange indeed that the world has some beautiful bridges over many seas and rivers but the Guyana Times chose to print an identical crossing built by the American army as a voluntary exercise in an Asian country.
The Guyana Times couldn’t publish pictures of other bridges because the editor would have been fired. The photographs would have embarrassed the government because the Berbice construction is the barest of bridges. Our neighbour Suriname has the lovely Jules Wijdenbosch Bridge which spans the Suriname River and connects east and western Suriname.
Readers could see beautiful bridges by connecting to Google. There is the aesthetically handsome one that connects Sweden and Denmark. When you look at the Berbice crossing, you see the cheapness in the making. This simply cannot escape your eyes.
There was absolutely no aesthetic thinking that went into the planning. Even a walkway for pedestrians is missing. The PPP boys and girls love to make the economic comparison between the PNC regime and their administration since they came to power in 1992.
Hidden from this boast is that they built a cheap floating like the Demerara Harbour Bridge sixteen years after they came to power. Burnham built his structure in 1972, four years after the PNC ousted its coalition partner, the UF and assumed the government on its own. The begging will go on, of course.
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