GOVERNMENT has been working in collaborative efforts with the private sector to create joint venture initiatives in restructuring policies and programmes geared toward the re-introduction of the high standards of yesteryear that were once an integral part of the Guyanese consciousness.

As our national poet, Martin Carter wrote. “All are involved, all are consumed” – and consumed we will be if we do not, with alacrity, find a common ground where all the forces in this country work together toward the common goal of building this country of ours into a cohesive unit striving toward national prosperity.

A case in point is our capital city of Georgetown.

In 1994 a civil society group comprising Bish Panday, Tony Xavier (then representing the Fernandes Group of Companies), Beni Sankar, Bert Carter, Sheila George, Leila Ramson, Rocky Mann, Fitz Edwards, Andy Moore, amongst others, formed the Interim Management Committee (IMC), with Dr. James Rose as Chairman. Within a short duration Georgetown was transformed into, if not a pristine city, at least a city from which the garbage had been cleared and systems implemented for the smooth functioning of the Council. That is, a Council that was prepared to work with commitment and honesty.

However, that proved to be a pipe dream, because the city, left again in the hands of the Georgetown City Council, has once more become a massive dumpsite reeking of filth and decay, despite periodic injections of substantial subventions from Central Government, along with huge revenues collected through normal channels. Consistent revelations of misconduct anent the financial arrangements of the Council exposed the circuitry and conduits by way of which the money was siphoned away from works in the city into areas for which it was not intended – areas from which the city cannot benefit.

The IMC had assumed responsibility of the city with an overdraft of $38 million. When it disbanded the City had a credit of $6 million. Mr. Hamilton Green became Mayor of Georgetown and the rest is history.

There is need for another interim management committee comprising dynamic figures as those in the IMC of yesteryear to co-ordinate the Herculean task of restoring this city once more to some semblance of its former glory days.
This latest initiative of Government to involve communities in the environmental clean-up exercises is a step in the right direction; now there should be a programme to ensure sustainability; and an educational component, beginning in homes and schools, whereby the training begins and is developed.