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A public relations trip to Lethem by five Ministers

Feb 23, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor,
The recent Government entourage of the Prime Minister and five important Ministers to Lethem seems more like a P.R. exercise to keep the people faithful. The Minister of Infrastructure would take his bragging rights for highway and bridge building. The other Ministers would make reassuring noises about plans and actions that are being hatched in the pipeline; time would see their imminent delivery. The Prime Minister delivered the coup d’état; the telling intention to solve all problems.(Chronicle 210216)
He used the improved Highway to Brazil as the highway to heaven. This highway will bring investors and with them all the goodies anyone could possibly want. There was no reference to the expanded role of this location as a regional centre. Not just an administrative centre, a market centre, or a bauxite mining town but a centre with a radio station promised since 1995/6 when the Prime Minister was the Minister of Local Government.
Yes a radio station would be a great communication service for the community for sharing, for solidarity and cohesion. The coalition has cohesion on its agenda. But where is regional independence from all trips to Georgetown and the time and money to trek there on mini-buses each and every day. All roads lead to Georgetown; all business must be done there and nowhere else. Internet and cell phone has replaced radio to a large extent so why not wifi, free wifi. Then a one stop shop to conduct all kinds of business, commercial and government business with forms to download for various applications, taxes to pay, bills to pay, income tax returns to be filed and a whole host of things to get done on the spot. Of course that presumes that the end that is receiving all this communication is equipped to handle timely processing and handing out of receipts, the public service end that will come up to speed.
Now back to the highway to the Brazilian heaven and a flow of salutary investors, another messianic hope by divine provision. Guyanese have had their fill of investors who do not come here for our sakes. Will they be any different from Bai Shan Lin? There is no mention of the President’s wish for micro-enterprise, micro-industry in industrial estates that will diversify the narrow economic base. That must be emplaced in all the regional centres supported by technical training centres and machine shops to make the simpler tools and machines to increase capability and productivity.
Such regional centres will be surrounded by intensive gardening and other farms. Agro-processing will prevent rotting of perishable produce and remove the cap on how much can be produced, marketed before it rots. The supply of bottled and canned goods to shops and groceries of processed goods with more than adequate shelf life will contribute to life in many ways to consumer, producer and middleman. Economies of scale will be achieved through and by small and micro enterprise improving the lot of small and middle income earners and give their young people jobs closer to home. A durable community will emerge.
Why did Minister Harmon and Minister Patterson not speak to the abandoned hydro electricity power project nearby (Moko Moko?)? Such green energy will cut the cost of electricity by half. Amaila Falls is another generation away. This project hit by a landslide at the dam has the penstocks already in place. The dam has to be put in shape.
Mahadeo Bissoon

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