Latest update April 18th, 2024 12:59 AM
Nov 25, 2018 AFC Column, Features / Columnists
The PPP’s brigade of ghost writers have recently ramped up their innuendoes and blatant lies, their thinly veiled propaganda in their attempts to have people believe that the Government was really rejected by the electorate in Sophia, Foulis/Buxton, Haslington, Nabaclis, and other areas in Region 4 where the Coalition’s support is strongest.
Our attention was drawn to a letter in one of the dailies last week in which the writer claimed that much of the sprawling Sophia area, from ‘A’ to ‘E’ Field, benefitted from fantastic infrastructure and homes provided by the PPP while that party was in power.
In his diatribe that was just wrong and pickled with stupid inaccuracies, the writer said that it was the PPP that gave Sophia’s residents a place to call home, that it was the PPP that ‘picked them up and made them into a thriving township’ while the PNC had ignored them.
He or she, presumably hiding behind a pseudonym, was brave enough to write that the people of Sophia voted against the Coalition in the November 2018 Local Government Elections as a show of gratitude to the PPP, especially because of the $10,000 school grants that used to be given to single parents once a year in August, ostensibly to outfit children for the new academic year.
Now, this is infantile to say the very least. It is raw politicking. We looked again at the results recorded in Sophia, that’s Constituency #5, and at just one location with several polling stations, we read numbers like 80 and 112 in favour of APNU, 10 and 11 in favour of the AFC, against the PPP’s 2’s and 3’s. If this is a win in the PPP’s mind, then we understand now their reason for crowing about winning Buxton and Foulis, ECD. The Elections Commission explained that these two East Coast communities are part of a large Neighbourhood Democratic Council district consisting of more than 6 communities, including Enterprise and Annandale.
Results for Buxton and Foulis read like this: APNU 1336 and 403 with 825 for Proportional Representation (PR); AFC 103 and 28 with 68 for PR; and PPP NIL and 28 with 34 for PR.
But let’s return to Sophia and the drivel being peddled by the Opposition. All of Sophia used to be classified as “Depressed”, from ‘A’ Field to Pattensen. Some work had been done in that Greater Georgetown area towards the end of the PPP era, but in 2015 it was still depressed with one main access road, and just tracks spotted with very large craters for community roads. Drivers drove around rather than through Sophia to avoid those large potholes. Crime was rampant, especially homicides, (it is still a problem that requires a lot of resources from the Ministries of Social Protection and Public Security, the Child Welfare Agency and non-governmental organizations). The rate of random robberies committed by youths who had nothing to do except rob their own neighbours was very high.
The most unfortunate part of the whole scenario is that the PPP still believes that Guyanese are ignorant and illiterate. The residents of Sophia understand better than anyone how much they have grown since 2015. They now have legitimate electricity supplies, potable water and asphalted roads, with continuous work being done. Before then, residents used to dig their own wells for water, and they used kerosene flambeaux so children could do their homework at night. They were so desperate for electricity that many householders resorted to illegal connections that ultimately killed people, domestic animals, cows and sheep, horses and donkeys.
The electricity company had been forced to carry out constant raids to remove illegal electrical connections that were run on the ground and through trenches. Those were dangerous times, and the constant presence of man-eating reptiles living in the high bushes in the area did not help.
Much of that has changed, and the residents continue to develop their communities with voluntary support from local and external organizations, including the Police Force and USAID.
Early in 2017, President David Granger commissioned several new roads lined with brand new streetlights built by the Public Infrastructure Ministry, as well as the Sophia Water Production and Distribution System put in by GWI.
Minister David Patterson said two years ago, that based on his Ministry’s 2015 evaluation of streets and roads in the city, Sophia had been assessed as having the worst ones. When the Ministry’s Surveyors and Road Engineers had completed the first assessments to identify the roads that needed the most attention, Sophia was the community that topped the list. As such, a sum of $825M was initially allocated to upgrade community roads with culverts, drains and shoulders. A new ring road was also constructed and streetlights were installed for the first time.
When President Granger commissioned the new systems in 2017, he said that Sophia is about the largest ward in Georgetown with over 25,000 residents, but it was the poorest. He praised the residents who evolved from their poverty with pride and a raw determination to rise above their circumstances. This Government had long seen that strength, so we made sure that they got the schools and proper health centres, playgrounds and other essential services that they had been asking for.
Sophia is now receiving the full support of the Ministries of Health, Social Services and Protection, Infrastructure, Telecommunications, Labour and Finance, along with several local and expatriate agencies. Residents are investing in their children’s education, and are taking full advantage of the opportunities to master Information Technologies, STEM and Robotics, through the ICT hubs that they do not have to pay to use.
So the PPP could stop the charade now. Everything is public knowledge including the orchestrated movement/spreading out of their supporters from traditional areas in traditional regions to Region 4.
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