By Francis Quamina Farrier

IN the American musical show, “South Pacific”, there is that song with the following lyrics, ” You must have a dream. If you don’t have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?” In a very recent exclusive interview with His Worship, Mayor Ubraj Narine, JP, of Georgetown, he shared with me, some of his dreams for the improvement of Guyana’s capital city. About three decades ago, Georgetown had descended from the glorious days of being known as “The Garden City of the Caribbean”, to the embarrassing title of, “The Garbage City”. A great city had fallen from grace, due to the falling standards of those who were its citizens. Garbage and filth were everywhere. Then came the 2015 General Elections and a new group of leaders almost immediately, commenced a dramatic CLEAN-UP Campaign. Some three years later, a new Mayor is at the helm, and he has many dreams for the continuing improvement of the city.

The first dream of the new Mayor is to have the deteriorating City Hall building repaired as soon a possible. That iconic wooden structure has been under my own journalistic radar for well over 15 years. During that period, I did quite a number of articles on television, online and in the print Media, about the sad state of the building. I interviewed the long-serving mayor, The Honourable Hamilton Green, about that issue, not only here in Guyana, but overseas as well. Other journalists have also written about the deteriorating condition of City Hall. Thousands of Guyanese, both at home and in the Diaspora, have also expressed their concern. Some even admitted that looking at the building in its present horrible state, brought tears to their eyes. But all to no avail.

The dream of the present City Mayor regards the restoration of the City Hall building, is to raise the necessary funds for that mammoth project from abroad as well as locally. Approaches to international organisations and individuals visiting from abroad, as well as accessing funds here in Guyana, are all elements of the Mayor’s dream for a City Hall which citizens and visitors alike, can look at with pride.
“These plans are all in the pipeline,” said the Chief Citizen. Will the dream of the sitting Mayor of Georgetown regards the restoration of the crumbling City Hall begin to materialise within a year? Probably earlier? The Mayor told me that he will even have boxes placed at certain venues for concerned citizens to make donations, no matter how small.

One of the big challenges for this relatively new Chief Citizen is to rake in a bulk of the $8.4 billion owing in taxes to the City Council. “The principal defaulters are business establishments,” the Mayor said. Soft-spoken, but with a quiet resolve, Mayor Ubraj Narine, gave me the impression that his dream for the City Hall will come true. Defaulting taxpayers will find it necessary, with the demand by the Mayor, to vastly improve Guyana’s Capital City, to do the right thing and PAY UP their back taxes as soon as possible.

Another dream of Mayor Narine is to vastly change the Stabroek Market Square. “I would like to see it transformed to the way Times Square is in Manhattan, New York City, where citizens can go and relax and feel free from fear,” he said. Minibuses and other vehicular traffic will no longer be allowed in the Stabroek Market Square. There will be peace and sanity in that location. Cleanliness and beauty will replace garbage and ugliness. The Mayor also plans to have fines for littering increased from $50,000 to $100,000.

Another big dream of Mayor Narine is to have all the large trees growing in the Koker out-fall at the side of the John Fernandes Wharf, removed by August to allow a much greater volume of water to drain from the land and end all the flooding in that commercial downtown area of the city. A smaller dream of the Mayor is to have a new Conversation Tree replanted at that historic location along the City’s northern public road. In all of his dreams for a much better Georgetown, Mayor Ubraj Narine is hopeful that all of the 200,500 citizens, and the tens of thousands more who visit Georgetown, from the rural and hinterland areas and from abroad, will dream with him for a Georgetown much more beautiful than it ever was.