THE parking lot in down-town Georgetown that was specially prepared by the Police Traffic Department and designated for parking by Route Number 45 (Stabroek/Hospital) and Route Number 41 (South Ruimveldt/Guyhoc Park) minibuses, has been overrun by garbage accumulated over the Christmas holidays. The garbage accumulation started on Christmas Eve, and continues unabated, growing from a little hillock into a mountainous pile of refuse, with no solution in sight.
This appears to be a deliberate attempt to derail the Government’s ‘Clean Up My Country’ initiative by the erstwhile Hamilton Green and company leading the unholy brigade of brigands – the vendors whom they encourage in all kinds of lawless behaviour, including illegal vending on city streets and pavements in exchange for crowd participation at political party events, especially where hooliganism prevails.
If anyone doubts this contention they merely have to re-visit television footage of APNU/AFC/PNC protests, identify the participants, especially the more vociferous and vicious ones, then look for them plying their illegal trade on the city pavements and streets, blocking both vehicular and pedestrian traffic.
Now, with nowhere to park the buses for which the garbage-strewn area was designated for parking, they are forced to occupy areas not allotted for parking purposes, thereby creating traffic hazards and danger to pedestrians, as well as incurring the wrath of the Traffic Police.
The Mayor and City Councillors have, over decades, encouraged the lawlessness prevailing all over the city and its environs. Visitors come to this country to, among others, enjoy our heritage sites, and this garbage accumulation is just outside one of Guyana’s primary sight-seeing locations, specially promoted by the Ministry of Tourism and tour operators – Stabroek Market.
This new development is not only a public nuisance, but also constitutes a serious public health threat, with the especial hazard of escalation of vector-borne and other serious diseases.
The anomaly and irony of the fund-raking ECHO head, Royston King, being the City’s Council PR representative is not lost; and the charade of his being an environmentalist is alleged to be a clever gimmick to acquire ill-gotten resources in cash and kind through grant aids and public-spirited citizens.
While the City Council condemns the business houses that are lax in paying their taxes, it simultaneously inhibits their businesses by allowing illegal vending outside the stores, whereby the unfair competition, especially during special holidays, is wreaking havoc with profitability, and even viability; because the vendors do not pay taxes, they have no overheads, use public facilities, are not subject to the various by-laws governing established trade; and worse of all, they create humongous garbage piles and littering that jams the waterways, consequencing an exacerbation in drainage problems in the city and its environs.
Every time the Ministry of Local Government and the acting Town Clerk, Carol Sooba, attempt to curtail illegal vending and establish law and order in the city they are circumvented by the illegally-ensconced Mayor and City Council. What a shame!