As part of a private initiative in which I am involved, on the morning of Thursday May 4, between the peak hours of 6am and 9am I had every vehicle entering Georgetown counted at the point of Liliendaal.

The total was 5767, comprising: Cars, SUVs & Pickups: 4366
Buses: 918 and Trucks & others: 483

This was just for three hours. I estimated that based on traffic heading out of Georgetown and an average per hour for the other daylight hours that the East Coast Demerara Highway is used approximately 25,000 times every working day.
Late on Wednesday night last week when I saw the advisory to close a portion of the lower ECD Highway to vehicular traffic, I thought that there was a good chance that it could result in gridlock based on the information I had at hand, compounded by the fact that a portion of the Railway Embankment is currently closed to facilitate works on the Liliendaal bridge.

I thought about raising this with my colleagues in government and asking for review. I decided against it as I had done previously when I thought that the traffic arrangements for events at the Guyana National Stadium were not very thoughtful, to state the case mildly. I have repeatedly stood down because I had given the benefit of the doubt to the Guyana Police Force’s traffic-management capacity. This is not an area of my professional expertise and I am always cautious in meddling in things in which I have little experience or competence. It was also late and plans would have been far advanced for the installation. In retrospect, I should not have stood down. By a stroke of initiative and lucky timing, I had critical data in my possession which in all likelihood was not in the possession of other officials.

The issue relating to the traffic gridlock which resulted from the arch installation was not a deliberate act of wanting to inconvenience the public. It was a simple, regrettable but instructive case of under-estimating aspects of our fast-changing reality. Ten years ago this operation could have been conducted with minimal disruption. Twenty years ago it might have gone completely unnoticed. One of the fastest growing aspects of Guyanese society is personal vehicle ownership. It is a thriving business. There are countless auto dealerships everywhere, from city to rural villages. Thousands of persons are directly buying vehicles online. Personal vehicle ownership in Guyana has exploded, this having been largely facilitated by access to financing through commercial banks and the auto dealerships themselves.

It is for this reason that Minister of Business, Dominic Gaskin, has been repeating ad nauseam that government must make decisions based on hard and credible data and that the need for data-driven decision-making is mandatory to get governance right.

What transpired last week was not wilful incompetence or spite. It was based on a desire, by this government, to please and to do the right thing. This was one instance in which it backfired and though belatedly, steps were taken to remedy the situation. Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson, has taken full responsibility. This is a marked and refreshing departure from the previous administration’s ‘take it and shut up’ approach to governance.

One of the things which this government is still to master is being shrewd in decision-making. Shrewd decision-making is an essential feature of good governance. Shrewd does not equal uncaring or unmindful. It means, relative to the issue at hand, taking decisions which are for the greater good, but which may pre-emptively upset some stakeholders who are set on a certain course of action. The arch installation provides us with a pertinent lesson in the need for shrewd leadership and governance. There have been previous recent examples as well.

This government has been, to its own detriment, keen to facilitate and accommodate, whether it is the ordinary citizen, the business sector, civil society or big business who play a central role in keeping the wheels of the economy turning.

Another arch was installed at Agricola/Eccles. Yet another was erected at Linden. There were disruptions then, but not as severe as there was last week. Perhaps we underestimated the volume of traffic that uses the ECD Highway daily. We clearly underestimated the volume of traffic which uses the ECD Highway daily, since the closure of part of the Railway Embankment.

And the unfortunate and regrettable disruption, stressful as it was for some, should not overshadow that the arch is a good thing for Guyana. For too long, we had neglected the aesthetics of our country, allowed it to become rundown to the point of resembling a shantytown. A once garden country reduced to rubbish and rot. Why should Guyanese only experience civilization when they travel overseas? Why should monuments, arches, statues only be for when we travel? Why can’t Guyana too have symbols which celebrate our culture, history and nationhood?

We must not lose sight of the big(ger) picture.

It is acknowledged however that as a government, we need to be clear of mind in decision-making. We need to, always, and regardless of repercussions, make decisions in the best interest of the people and the greater good, even though that would mean making some folks (sometimes very influential and powerful folks) unhappy. It is a difficult and delicate balance to strike. Lessons are learnt every day. And it is without question that the quality of governance has vastly improved from what it was a few years prior.