Changes are for the better
There was some rainfall earlier this past week, the kind that would lead to some flooding in the city. By daylight I prepared myself to wade in some water on the city streets. Lo and behold, there was not a drop. I immediately recognized that the efforts to clean up the city were bearing fruit.
It all started soon after the coalition government came into force. Brian Tiwarie simply put his equipment to use in the vicinity of Square of the Revolution and before one could say Jack Rabbit the area became transformed.
Then groups became involved all over the country, clearing drains and cutting down the bush that tended to hide the beauty of their neighbourhoods. Today, the city is as clean as it ever was, and of course the inter-lot drains are flowing again. In some places I saw drains that I never knew existed.
The cleanup is still ongoing and I am willing to bet that there is a spin-off from the exercise. For one, there are people who were once unemployed. These people now have money in their pockets. They have entered the world of work. This is just something that the new government had promised—to put people to work.
I am surprised that this was not done before. For two decades people lived in filth and all the government would say is that City Hall was allowing the city to become a garbage dump. Indeed, in the latter part of last year, the government announced that it was putting one billion dollars into a cleanup effort. Half of that money was to have been used in the city.
I am not sure that the money went to where it was intended, because precious little happened. The drains remained clogged and the streets flooded. Now I hear that the government is spending too much money on the beautification effort. That speaks of a certain mindset.
The coalition government is now targeting infrastructure, something that had been allowed to collapse. I still hear the previous government talking about inheriting a rundown economy and broken infrastructure. I still hear of the billions of dollars spent. I never saw the effect of such spending. Instead I saw stalled contracts.
Indeed, the government did cause some money to flow into the economy. It got tremendous help from gold and the other industries. But those industries slowed. Yet ordinary people began to drive cars. We are at the stage where we may run out of roads. Already, parking is a nightmare, and it is only time before some enterprising people open car parks in the city.
There is another thing that caused me to think about how the previous government spent money. This has to do with the construction of the Specialty Hospital. Robert Persaud was friendly with Surendra Engineering and may have influenced the contract to that entity.
It turned out that Surendra was far from being a household name in its native India, yet Guyana entrusted millions of foreign dollars to this company. It therefore came as no surprise when the company spent a fraction of that money and ran. Indeed, the government sued, but it simply cannot collect that money.
And so it is that I came to talk with Ajay Jha, the man who is carrying the Fedders Lloyd hat in Guyana. Two weeks ago, Anil Nandlall made a huge noise about going to court to thwart Fedders Lloyd from constructing the hospital.
What he did not say was that his government had approached Fedders Lloyd to take over from where Surendra left off. Mr Jha said that through a mutual friend he got word that the government wanted to contact the company. Donald Ramotar told the Indian High Commissioner that he regretted not giving the contract to Fedders Lloyd.
Anil Nandlall met with Mr Jha and began a programme of getting the company to undertake the project. Ashni Singh was cock-a-hoop. He told Mr Jha that when his party wins the elections Fedders Lloyd would begin working on the Specialty Hospital, picking up from where Surendra Engineering left off.
The fact is that the then government recognized that the Indian company was qualified to undertake the project. There was no talk about disqualification at the time. The recognition was that the money was coming from India and an Indian company had to be selected.
Mr Jha said that there was nothing wrong with the Fedders Lloyd bid, except that the company offered a discount. To crown it all, the company is prepared to use whatever money is left after the Surendra deal to complete the hospital. Why should a government not accept that offer?
It would seem that some of us have grown accustomed to wasting money, largely because it is not coming from our pockets. We spent a lot of money on the sugar packaging plant and we are not getting what we paid for. We spent a lot of money on the Skeldon plant that we are now getting to work. It has not escaped notice that former President Bharrat Jagdeo is claiming responsibility for the turnaround.
He must be the first out-of-office president to guarantee a change in the fortunes of government property.
Fedders Lloyd has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the government. It promises to start the project early in the New Year once the contract is signed. But will there be further objections from the previous government? Will it be like the case of a man who tried to woo a woman and lost her to another man? Jealousy can be a bitch.
