CITIZENS on the other side of 50 will recall those years when the capital City of Georgetown was a model of cleanliness. 

A punctilious schedule of daily maintenance ensured that every drain and alley throughout the municipality was cleaned; canals cleared of weed and sundry objects, apart from being desilted, with the many reserves neatly shorn of the grass. Even citizens, understood the necessity of keeping the city clean, since they ensured that household garbage was properly disposed of into bins; neither did they litter. Absolutely, the description of a Garden City had been well merited.

But from a time when Municipal workers could have been seen removing garbage on an almost daily basis, and when citizens supported such efforts by ensuring that they practised wholesome habits – City Hall’s management beset by all kinds of incompetencies, has been criminally neglecting its duties of maintenance.

This current Council, still in office because of extraordinary circumstances, is presiding over a city that is almost buried beneath its own garbage pile. Even Le Repentir cemetery has become a frightening jungle, instead of the serene resting place of the dead it once had been.

It is as if garbage dumping has become part of an ingrained culture – part of the national psyche, because of the propensity for indiscriminate dumping – everywhere! Even the city waterways, all the canals, are the recipients of the Styrofoam and plastic nightmare, just to name a few, with all the drains choked, and with parapets overgrown with thick vegetation. No doubt, the city floods quickly after every heavy downpour; and citizens have to be watchful when walking close to grass reserves. This had been an observation from an earlier editorial on the state of the City.
Undoubtedly, one must hold the Council culpable for this criminal neglect, especially for not removing the garbage, and general maintenance of the city. However, citizens are equally responsible for this insalubrious state, because of their total disregard for even their immediate environment. Many yards do not have a garbage receptacle, but the garbage is either piled at some point, or disposed of elsewhere.
But is this abysmal state of the City going to continue without remedial action being taken? No! For with the announcement of the $500M dispensation towards what can be described as a city-wide clean-up, relief has finally arrived. This intervention by Government is intended to return Georgetown to its former glory. So comprehensive will this intervention be, that citizens are being involved in the consultations process as to the initiative and the role they can, and are expected to play in the restoration of their City. It is as well that they are involved, since they too are part of the present problem that affects the City.
The M&CC must be blamed for a City that is atrocious in its environmental conditions, and this hardly needs repeating as it stare us all in the face! The garbage especially is not being removed daily as it ought to be. But the citizens, including those of commerce and business, are guilty of desecrating the City by-laws: they are seriously guilty of dumping, thereby adding to the threatening hazardous City woes. What is even worse, a fact already alluded to in a prior Editorial, is the deliberate depositing of builders’ waste in many parts of the City’s drainage system. There are many examples of this flagrant dereliction around our City.
These are the same corporate personalities who boldly criticise City Hall for bad maintenance, as is correctly the case. However, they conveniently forget that their desecrating actions continue to undermine an already imperiled City. These citizens, from whom better is expected, and even after construction of their particular building, do not even bother to remove the waste deposits from the drain.
Not only would their many suggestions be considered for making Georgetown a cleaner locale, but it is expected that the errant ones will begin to respect the City as a place where they, like so many thousands, live. The reality is that in this new dispensation to come, it is envisaged that each citizen will play his/her role in making not only their immediate environs healthier, but desist from the insalubrious practices that have caused us all to be traversing its thoroughfares in garbage! That area somewhat in the vicinity of the Central Fire Station is an indictment as to how abysmal a condition our City is now in. What a horrible sight that patch is – with garbage strewn in horribly stagnant water, with vegetation having taken root!
A clean capital City reflects a proud nation and citizenry.