MEGA PROJECTS rising up with spectacular glitz and glamour in hot-spot investment areas across this country would transform their surrounding community, gracing the land with new skylines, sudden, overnight wealth and prosperity for Guyanese who, for decades and generations, existed in a laid back lifestyle, and with a new way of enjoying being Guyanese. Preparing the population and local scenario to handle and deal with such a spectacular sudden rise in fortunes would more and more become a necessity as the new Guyanese future unfolds.

The country experienced pockets of development transforming the East Bank Demerara corridor, from Grove to Georgetown, with Providence, Eccles, Houston, Diamond and Peter’s Hall all seeing tremendous growth and development over the years. The same with the Ogle community. These developments took years to roll out, with the transformation rolling out gradually enough that the ordinary person got used to the unfolding of the new terrain. Now, however, development is pushing ahead so fast that citizens would find a lot of it dizzying, and keeping up with the massive transformation happening may require a period of adjustment in the public psyche, though eventually a fast-rising Guyanese nation will become the new normal.

Both President Ali and Senior Minister responsible for Finance within the Office of the President, Dr Ashni Singh, regaled the nation this week with the stunning news that Guyana is today the number one destination in the world for new investments. That’s heady stuff. Imagine when the spanking new expanded international airport opens up at Timehri, with a Marriot hotel and other enterprises gracing that area, and when the Brazil-Lethem highway is installed in the hinterland, and when the Suriname-Guyana mega international bridge opens up on the Corentyne, how these three outlying areas would become boom towns, attracting droves of international visitors and a hive of new activity and scores of world class development projects.

Suddenly, the Corentyne is looking like an international hot-bed for exciting new projects, with Surinamese, and even possibly people from Holland, joining forces with Berbicians and other Guyanese to dream up new business ideas.

The Lethem region would see a stupendous acceleration in international traffic, new ventures, and world class enterprises. Timehri, so long ensconced in a rural atmosphere, would become a bright shining urban landscape, with its residents feeling the pulse of a new dynamism. Preparing the people in these communities for this kind of take-off, this rapid vertical elevation, must be a part of the planning process for these areas.

President Ali said that government also intends to invest and construct a new city, possible aback of Linden, somewhere around the Ituni community. One hopes that this new Guyanese city would be a futuristic endeavour, with technology playing the major role in its state-of-the-art design and function. Several futuristic cities are in the works around the world, and were Guyana to join this elite movement, what a fascinating journey is ahead for the Guyanese nation.
Albeit, even as the nation looks forward with eager anticipation for these mega projects to transform how Guyanese live and enjoy their country, certain persisting challenges cry out for solutions.

Look at how this country deals with malfunctioning traffic lights in Georgetown, and with street lights that stop working, and with the way people dispose of garbage. In these three small scenarios, the Guyanese nation experiences a graphic symbol of the kind of public culture that crept up on the society, which would not contribute to the kind of future that government is unfolding now. Whoever is in charge of managing these things fail with astonishing frequency and seeming disregard for any sense of efficiency, proper management and maintenance, and for professional integrity in their work.

Guyanese cannot look to government leaders to walk around fixing traffic lights and repairing street lights and cleaning garbage heaps that appear overnight, seemingly out of nowhere. These sort of things belong in the realm of middle managers and bureaucrats who are hired to do these jobs. How hard is it to make sure that the few traffic lights that this country has are working well? It is not a job for a genius, as any proficiently trained manager would be able to make sure traffic lights are up to date and performing their rightful function. All over the world, every society on this planet makes its traffic lights work well. Guyana needs to smarten up in this area.

Then, citizens have become accustomed to street lights going out and hardly turning back on again. For years, some street lights have stopped working. Whose job is it to make sure street lights are working? And, of course, there is the long standing vexing sight of garbage littering streets in Georgetown and other areas. Even in New Amsterdam, and Anna Regina, open garbage heaps fester with flies and rats.

The historic and ongoing devastating failure of the City Council of Georgetown and Town Council of New Amsterdam, ironically, and maybe significantly, both being managed by the People’s National Congress (PNC) as that party wins local government elections for these urban centres, simply cannot continue to afflict this country. Both urban centres need a new paradigm and maybe new systems, to be able to function efficiently, professionally, and with rational sense.

Guyana is rising so fast that much needs to be done to make sure new development does not fall into the seeming cultural habit of this nation for letting broken things fall apart in disrepair, disregard, and disharmony with the fascinating, forward, futuristic movement of the society.