ESSEQUIBIANS living in the villages of La Belle Alliance, Windsor Castle, Devonshire Castle and Walton Hall are calling on Public Works Minister, Robeson Ben to install streetlights on the public road before Christmas.
The residents claim the street lighting project came to a sudden end in September and was never resumed. That is not fair to them, as some other villages enjoy the benefit of street lighting within the town of Anna Regina and they are left out.
One resident of Sparta, Ramesh Singh said the programme stopped at La Belle Alliance and then restarted at Hampton Court and stopped, again, in Devonshire Castle, excluding Lima, Coffee Grove, Danielstown, Fear Not, Sparta, Windsor Castle and Walton Hall, all situated in the northern section of the Anna Regina township.
Residents said all the villages from Anna Regina to Queenstown have lights on the public road.
The villages between Johanna Cecelia and Onderneeming, Good Hope and Supenaam are also benefitting from the street lighting scheme.
The busy market area of Charity is also not the beneficiary of street lights for the Christmas season.
The town of Anna Regina, as usual, is busy with hundreds of shoppers flocking the market and supermarkets to do shopping as the countdown to Christmas starts.
Makeshift stalls
Many vendors from the Cinderella County and scores of others from as far as Georgetown and Berbice have set up makeshift stalls along the shoulders of the road leading to the market at Anna Regina and put on display beautiful artificial flowers, curtains, decorations for Christmas trees and homes and fancy clothing.
The shoppers in their numbers and vendors create a lively atmosphere which is filled with Christmas songs, laughter and peace as every shopper tries to buy some new curtains, carpets, bedsheets and other things to decorate for a traditional Guyanese Christmas.
Also on display along the Market Road are apples, grapes, walnuts and kitchen equipment while the supermarkets are crowded daily.
At the Anna Regina car park, minibuses and hire cars are busy transporting shoppers to and from the commercial centre and the atmosphere at Charity is very lively, as well, with hundreds of farmers from The Pomeroon and miners from the interior meeting at the waterfront to shop.
The centre of attraction is the $400M Alfro Alphonso supermarket that offers shoppers a wide range of products, food items among them, comparable to international standards. It is housed in a five-storey complex that has a ‘sky bar’ at the top.
The Alphonso companies also sell the ‘Dixie Lee’ line of products and people are expected to flock it for Dixie Lee Fried Chicken, amidst the prevailing seasonal atmosphere of peace.