Latest update May 14th, 2024 12:59 AM
Nov 11, 2018 Letters
Dear Editor,
I go to Georgetown about five times a week and I pass near City Hall constantly. A very close look at that building tells me clearly that that building can collapse at any moment. The posts and ceiling that hold up that building are very weak and rotten. The constant vibration from heavy-duty trucks and many heavier vehicles is constantly eroding and weakening the foundation of that building. If something is not done with City Hall building soon, I am afraid it will soon collapse and many innocent lives will be lost.
To maintain these buildings seems to be of no interest to the past or current administration. Royston King, the current Town Clerk on leave in an interview on television said it will cost 0.9 billion dollars to rebuild City Hall; actually a billion dollars or more is estimated. I give below a brief history of City Hall, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Georgetown City Hall is a nineteenth-century Gothic Revival building located on the corner of Regent Street and Avenue of the Republic in Georgetown, Guyana. The building was designed by architect Reverend Ignatius Scoles in 1887, and was completed in June 1889. The building houses the offices of the Mayor, the City Council, and the City Engineer.
Georgetown City Hall is often described as “the most picturesque structure” and “the most handsome building in Georgetown,”
as well as one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in the Caribbean.
In 1995, the Government of Guyana proposed Georgetown City Hall as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The building currently occupies the status of “tentative listing”.
From that brief history that I have quoted, I learn that City Hall is 129 years old and in that period of time nothing has been done to restore and rehabilitate the pristine beauty of this magnificent architecture. It is imperative that we preserve what we have or we will lose it. The High Court is another shabby looking building that needs a face-lift and some beautiful paintings. A close look at the statue of Queen Victoria and one can see one of her arms is missing. The GPOC building is another eye sore to Georgetown; full of vagrants sleeping and living around it and it is extremely stink from urine and faeces.
I see some rehabilitation work is being done on St. Georges Cathedral over a year now but it seems that will take a lifetime and members of that congregation to put their lives at risk at the mercy of God because that building can collapse anytime. The Bank of Guyana needs to be painted over and many more prominent buildings in the City have become a perpetual eye sore. My father used to tell me, ”When a man doesn’t work to build something, he will never value it.” The truth in that can be clearly seen at the collapsed state of City Hall and no one seems to care. It’s about time these buildings be restored to its former glory by our current administration.
The problems that I have seen with this country is a very lackadaisical and lethargic one. We wait until something is completely destroyed then we try to pass a budget to fix it that costs billions to fill unscrupulous pockets.
Please permit me, Editor, a few more lines about the East Coast road. This road construction is getting from bad to worse – daily hours of long lines of traffic in the mornings and afternoon. Citizens go to work late, our kids to school late. I am wondering if these engineers really know what they are doing. They break and dig up everywhere in front your homes; you can’t even drive out of your own yard, with make-shift bridges for the old and elderly. In my opinion, if they were building this road by 1000 meters in stages, the job would have been long completed; but the engineers are dragging this work out to wreak billions of dollars for very poor quality work and the rainy season is already here.
I am calling on the Ministry of Public Works to get this East Coast Work completed by a scheduled deadline.
Regards,
Rev. Gideon Cecil
Listen how to run an oil country
May 14, 2024
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