The 200th anniversary of our capital city of Georgetown has come, with a litany of woes, including financial, environmental, infrastructural, traffic, noise nuisance, street vending and attitudinal problems.
These problems did not arrive overnight but came as a result of decades-long neglect, mismanagement and poor administration and incompetence which have been further magnified by a long absence of local government elections that has resulted in an incompetent bunch of city officials becoming entrenched and plunging the city into chaos and total disorder.
It is most unfortunate that on the 200th anniversary of Georgetown, which has a very rich history and some of the most unique architectures in the world, particularly the wooden ones, we cannot be proud of what was once regarded as the “Garden City.” In fact, we have to down our heads in utter shame of what this city has become.
According to a report in this newspaper, City Hall will be meeting with stakeholders on Wednesday to find ways to rescue the city from its present problems. While this move is a positive one and therefore welcome, the question that needs to be answered is why only now such a meeting is being kept. Did we have to wait until the problems have become so acute and almost unmanageable before waking up? Certainly not, because the woes of the city have been with us for a very long time and could be comparable to “Nero  fiddling while Rome was being burnt” scenario.
Nevertheless, it is good that good sense has prevailed and some action is now being taken to help restore our city to the requisite pride and dignity it desires.
But let us not be fooled, as you could have the best systems, managers and administrators and still fail if people’s attitudes are not changed to one of being responsible and proud of their environment. And this has been recognised by the Mayor and City Council which has opined that residents of the city seem increasingly to be losing their sense of responsibility towards the city, as is evident from the number of communities and residents doing their own thing: having a lax attitude towards the environment, failing to honour their tax obligations, and lacking neighbourliness.
While this problem has been recognised, City Hall and society as a whole have failed miserably to address the lawlessness and implement effective remedial measures and solutions to arrest this problem.
It is so sickening and disgusting to see people throwing food boxes and all sorts of garbage anywhere they feel like, but hey will continue to do this because they are not penalised for doing so and therefore feel free and comfortable to do so.
These very people will go abroad and observe littering and environmental laws, but in their own country they violate these laws with impunity. However, the reason for this is because observing/enforcing littering and environmental laws is the norm. The people in those countries treat their environment with pride and dignity and anyone who does otherwise is treated with scorn and scoffed at. Here in our country littering and disregard for the environment are the norm and those who observe the littering laws and show regard for the environment are treated with scorn and scoffed at and are even considered by some to be crazy. That is the deplorable level we have degenerated to as a society.
Therefore, any plan of action which is developed to rescue our city from its woes would not be worth its salt, if it does not lay major emphasis on changing the attitudes of our citizens.