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May 28, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
Kaieteur News – The government in all countries sends out its employees to work to keep the functionalism of the country alive. So the minister sends a group of carpenters to repair a school step. The minister is not expected to sit down and see that they use greenheart instead of soft wood.
A minister sends out a plumber to fix a pipe. He/she is not expected to watch over the worker to see that he uses a more durable paste. There are times we focus too much on the minister and not his/her erring employees. Sometimes we focus on the manager and not his/her inept subordinates and the nation suffers as a consequence.
One day in the National Park, I saw an incredibly incompetent thing happen. The garbage collectors were going from bin to bin and dumping the bins with the trash inside onto the tractor. They skipped an abandoned bolted down bin the body of which had rotten away so the remnants of the garbage lay at the bottom for anyone to see.
As they passed me and my dog as they emptied the plastic bins onto the tractor-trailer, I told them there was garbage in the bolted down bin. I showed them the amount. Those guys just moved on without blinking an eye. Here was a group of workmen cleaning the National Park and deliberately missing a pile of thrash that was pointed out to them.
I complained to one of the supervisors who said he would have it picked up. The next day, I saw the same group and I went up to one of them and told them that they would see me as the worst human in the world if I had gone to the general manager (GM) and complained about their behaviour. Now read the incredible stories about Guyana. Months and months after that pile of garbage was still there. I don’t think the GM ever knew how brutally incompetent those men were.
What I am about to describe below is yet another manifestation of how inexplicable the people of this country are. The Ministry of Public Works is landscaping a roundabout at the junction of Sherriff Street and Railway Embankment. If you are travelling west on the Embankment at its junction with Conversation Tree Road traffic having to move off the Embankment; you cannot continue because of the construction ahead.
So at Conversation Tree, you either make a right swing that will take you onto the Atlantic highway or a left turn into Stone Avenue. If you are going downtown or anywhere in northern Georgetown, then obviously you will take the highway. If you are going to southern Georgetown, for example, the Ministry of Health to have your COVID-19 vaccine, you will drive on Stone Avenue in Blygezight.
But Stone Avenue in Blygezight is destroyed. It can only accommodate trucks and 4X4 vehicles. The road has more craters than the aftermath of a volcano. Small cars will be damaged trying to manoeuvre it. It is impassible and impossible to negotiate it.
Enter commonsense. If you know you are forcing drivers onto Stone Avenue, which is in a terrible state, then commonsense should dictate that at least some sand should be thrown on it so drivers would not fall into the craters and create miscarriage if their wives are pregnant. What is so profound about acquiring that knowledge? It has nothing to do with road construction and engineering but commonsense.
It never fails to sicken me to see how people in this country suffer humiliatingly in silence and just go about their miserable lives without even one word of complaint. The Jews have vowed that there will never be another Holocaust. You would think Guyanese people would have vowed there would never be slavery and indentureship again. But citizens are slaves and indentured servants in the 21st century in Guyana.
They drove in fear for four years at the junction of the Railway Embankment and UG Road because of unworkable traffic lights. They are now driving in fear at Sheriff Street and the Atlantic highway because those signals are not working over two months now. They willingly accept breaking up their cars on Stone Avenue. They are afraid to speak and love their self-destruction.
One night, the then minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson, was drinking his beer at the snackette outside his party’s head office. In a rude tone of voice, I looked and pointed eastward and told him to fix the traffic signals and streetlights on the Embankment. One of the AFC’s sycophants, Simon Duggan, intervened and said, “Minista, I like de lights yuh put up at Mahaica.” Oh man, what a self-destructive nationality!
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)
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