Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
Dec 09, 2018 AFC Column, Features / Columnists
Phase one of the annual Budget debates ended in the National Assembly on Friday with the Coalition Government dominating the proceedings with positivity. Speaker after speaker laid out a raft of very effective, irrefutable accomplishments their ministries and agencies chalked up in this year alone, and the plans and programmes that are already on stream for 2019. It is impressive, to say the least.
Public Infrastructure Minister, David Patterson, stood tall. He calmly reminded the Opposition that all their party could be credited for in 23 years is converting the first section of the East Bank Public Road up to Diamond into a four-lane highway. That begs the question – what prevented the previous Government from constructing a new road instead that would definitely ease the nerve wracking, hours-long, decades-old traffic congestion that commuters on both sides of the Demerara endure every single day.
It is now left to the David Granger administration to correct this almost criminal failure. Those officials had a predilection for slap-on repairs. They had no will to build new structures, although the skills were there. One investigator pointed out that millions of the people’s dollars, which the PPP used to allocate for repairs and infrastructural extensions really provided great opportunities to cream off the top.
Come 2019, this Coalition Government is going to build that East Bank to East Coast link, from Diamond to Ogle. It will have several connecting spurs (total length 9.62 km) at Aubrey Barker Road, Haags Bosch, Mocha Arcadia and Diamond Access roads. The overriding objective is to free up movement, on the East Bank road and at both ends of the Harbour Bridge.
The road link will benefit citizens all across this country, people travelling along the coast from Berbice through to Linden and into the hinterland regions where most mineral mining and logging take place. The proposed East Bank/East Coast link will be convenient for arrivals and departures from both international airports, and it will definitely shorten travel time. Minister Patterson gave the assurance that design work will begin early in 2019.
Imagine what the city and its environs would look like when these projects are finished – properly aligned highways; a new multi-lane fixed bridge across the Demerara River; asphalted internal streets laid out in a box configuration; street signs and markings; manicured parapets with flowering trees. We dare say that there is not one citizen who does not want the capital to have its old name, The Garden City, back.
When we go east (as the drone flies in this technological age), the controversial Berbice Bridge will still add to the pleasing aesthetics, which Government is determined to build and sustain, despite the ugliness that surrounds the facility. Up to this year, the managers of the Bridge tried to whip up controversy, using the travelling public as pawns, bait.
Thankfully, we have a true Government for the people. It has no interest in sidelining anyone or any group, no matter what their political preferences are. When the bridge company first flexed its muscles in 2015 and introduced ridiculously high tolls, Government introduced river taxis and free passage for students, which are still in effect. Take note that the BBCI is receiving the revenue that they had anticipated from the toll increases because Government is paying the difference between the previous toll and lower rates that were negotiated. This is to avoid any hardships on commuters in Berbice.
This year the bridge company climbed its high horse again and announced another raft of ridiculously high tolls to be instituted from 12 November, Local Government Election day. Again the Coalition immediately instituted measures to ensure that people were not manipulated in the BBCI’s venal schemes to collect more money.
Government took temporary possession of the Bridge and is executing its promise to carry out all maintenance on the bridge and pontoons, and sustain the tolls. Mind you, ALL of the revenue from tolls collected during this period until the bridge is handed back to the BBCI, will be given over to the BBCI without prejudice.
This matter is another example of the stark differences between the two parties. One is hell bent on acquiring as much money and property as it could (and damn how the public feels about it); the other is determined to make life and living as easy as possible for Guyanese while they ready the country for change, for growth.
One other example is the raw determination of the Public Telecommunications Minister, Cathy Hughes, to ensure that as many of our citizens as possible, reaching into the valleys of the Pakaraima Mountains, have access to the worldwide web (Internet), and to equal quality education, health, and access to public services.
The Ministry is providing computer literacy training even for children as young as nine years. It is working closely with the Education Ministry to include Robotics, Animation and Artificial Intelligence in the curriculum in schools from primary to university; and with the Public Health Ministry to bring telemedicine (the ability to consult with health professionals remotely via the internet) to our inland regions and the hinterland.
Minister Hughes made a poignant statement recently that partly exposes the PPP’s attempts to engineer the failure of the Coalition. The PPP’s oldest gambit is economic licks, meaning that their supporters contract their business, earn less revenue, pay less taxes that could hamper development, then scream dramatically that the Government is anti-private sector.
Minister Hughes said, “If the Opposition is interested in truly representing its constituency, they should return to the Parliamentary Committees; they refuse to participate in, take up the seats on the state boards that they refuse to occupy. Talk is always cheap and easy. It is easy to criticize but much harder to do the work. Theatrical outbursts are easy to perform, but where does that leave us, any of us? ‘An eye for an eye’ makes us all blind!”
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