COMMENTARY An open appeal to Georgetown: It is time for a new beginning

By Dr. Leslie Ramsammy

It is time for a new beginning for Georgetown. It is time we rescue Georgetown. On June 12th, at the

Local Government Elections (LGE) 2023, we the residents of Georgetown can give Georgetown a chance to be once again CARICOM’S iconic city. Let us, together, do it right and have a mayor and a town council who will work with the Central Government in the interest of Georgetown and those who live and work here and those who visit.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Georgetown was regarded as the Caribbean’s “Garden City”. This was before Mr. Forbes Burnham became the Mayor of Georgetown in 1959. He continued as Mayor until 1964, and, officially, was mayor of Georgetown between 1964 and 1966, but had also become the Prime Minister after the then Governor of Guyana did not invite the winner of the 1964 General Elections to form a government. Since Independence, Mr. Burnham’s party, the People’s National Congress (PNC), in one form or another, has been in charge of Georgetown. The present form is APNU. Counting the years since independence, it means Georgetown has been under the PNC for 57 years. If we count the years when Forbes Burnham, as leader of the PNC, first became mayor, it has been 64 years that Georgetown has been under the PNC, no matter what disguise the party presents itself to voters.

In the span of the last 64 years, beautiful Georgetown has degenerated, from being the Caribbean’s Garden City to the Caribbean’s “Garbage City”. One senior government official from one of our sister CARICOM countries at lunch the other day remarked how he could feel the excitement and the positive vibes in Guyana, the optimism that our country is transforming rapidly to become the economic, social, cultural and political epicenter of CARICOM. He, however, remarked “but, man, you guys need to do something about Georgetown. Why is it so dirty”? We would be lying if we cannot admit to ourselves that we have heard this said by visitors over and over again, by our visiting relatives, and among ourselves. This is a regurgitating refrain among residents of Georgetown and visitors, both local and international.

This sad state of Georgetown is the legacy of the one political party that has held hegemony in the City of Georgetown for more than 64 years. Yet one of their mayors, Hamilton Green, is always pontificating on how great he was as a mayor. They make promises that they never keep, have no plan or interest to regain the title as the Garden City of the Caribbean, or how to transform our city into a modern metropolis. It is not merely that Georgetown is dirty and full of garbage, it is also that the city looks run-down. The pride of Georgetown and Guyana, a truly global icon in buildings, the Stabroek Market, is an eye sore. The Bourda and La Penitence Markets are disgraceful. The iconic City Hall Building has been left to ruins. Central Government investments have been misused and unused. The USAID had to take back monies allocated to the City Council to rehabilitate the City Hall. The City and Mayor of Georgetown buildings have been left to fall apart. Had central government not invested massively in the city, Georgetown, this city would be in an even more sorry and desperate state. The streets have been left in utter disrepair. The City Council has essentially abandoned any pretense of doing even basic repairs. It is 2023 and there are still mud dams in Georgetown. Since 2020, not a single street has been redone by the City Council and the Mayor. These streets are being rehabilitated and reconstructed under a massive Central Government investment program in Georgetown. Street lights have to be repaired and new ones being installed under a Central Government program. Playgrounds are overgrown, many are in disuse. The cemeteries in Georgetown are the proverbial “hell”, even the dead are afraid to be taken there.

City drains are almost disappearing. Where they still look like drains, they are overgrown and in desperate need for cleaning. The council has been sending some workers to do minimal amount of work. By the time these workers, clad with sometimes cutlass and basic tools are finish, they make more mess than cleaning up. City sluices to the Demerara River are so silted up, many cannot open when there are heavy downpours. Pumps are often inoperable. The President, since 2021, has started a clean-up campaign that has helped a little. But the same spots where cleaning up occurred, become garbage-infested the next day. Not one day has the mayor or any member of the PNC leadership joined the cleaning-up campaign. We have experienced the frequent suspension of garbage collection because they City of Georgetown fail to pay its bills. These are the reasons why when you “smell” rain coming, you know the city will be flooded.