Over the years, the City of Georgetown has undergone many rehabilitative works by various organisations, including members of the Private Sector Commission and the Mayor and City Council, in collaboration with the Central Government.

More recently, the Government of Guyana, along with members of the Private Sector Commission, members of civil society and joint services have embarked on efforts to clean up the city, thus ridding it of debris, and efforts are on the way to enhance the beautification of the city.

The Pepperpot Magazine recently spoke with Deputy Mayor of the City of Georgetown Alfred Mentore, who outlined some of the beautification works that are being done to enhance the city and the Merriman Mall.
“We have plans to beautify the Merriman Mall between Cummings and Light Streets, and to put up some shopping outlets. There are also plans to put in an additional play area as well.

However, the beautification efforts are being done as a result [of] a Public and private partnership with the business community,” Mentore told the Pepperpot Magazine.
During the interview, Mentore indicated plans to enhance what is referred to as “Bourda Green”.

The Deputy Mayor also addressed the question of maintaining the ancient colonial and architectural structures in the capital city.
He noted that there aren’t plans to do away with ancient, colonial structures but to improve and modernise them.

This effort, he noted, is consistent with Central Government‘s plan to improve and modernise all structures.

He also noted during his interview that the Mayor and City Council can only execute its plans if the adequate amount of revenue is garnered from taxes collected from Citizens.

To this end, much of the plans for the beautification of the city is in tandem with Central Government and also the plans that were put forward by the previous administration that were good plans.
Mentore was careful to mention that the Mayor and City Council is working on a plan to garner some much-needed revenue in the form of taxes to execute these works.

It was noted during the interview that the Council has granted an amnesty period to Citizenry regarding timely payment of their taxes.

Meanwhile Paul Cheong, head of the Private Sector Commission spoke to the issue of the Private Sector playing its part in ensuring that the city, and by extension, the country, is
always in tip-top shape regarding cleanliness.

“The clean up that we had last weekend was part of a
continuing effort to enhance the whole appearance of the
environment. It is a continuous process, I mean the
Government, along with the Private Sector, has been doing its
part, the City Council needs to do its part. This is everybody’s
responsibility,” Cheong told the Pepperpot Magazine.
He added that he is hoping that this will transcend throughout the country.
According to him, Vreed-en-Hoop and other communities have
had similar exercises to lift the image of the
country and also an exercise done to give back to the
community.

The PSC head lauded the efforts of members of the public who have captured persons on social media, who are indiscriminately throwing garbage in and around the city.
Regarding the laws governing littering, Cheong was very clear and noted during in the interview that the culture of the society and people have to changed.

“We need to instill in people a different culture, people comply
with the laws in other countries when they visit them. While penalties are important, we must be multifaceted.

We are putting garbage receptacles along the avenues, but it has to be a more holistic thing,” Cheong noted in his comment.

Cheong’s comments as well as those of the Mayor and Town Council regarding getting the “Garden City” back to its previous glory, mirror the concerns of many Guyanese, who, for years have lamented on the condition of various parts of Georgetown even as several initiatives continue to be put in place to restore the capital city.