Something stinks in the green state of Guyana
Mar 11, 2018 , Kaieteur News, https://www.kaieteurnewsonline...een-state-of-guyana/
There is a small playground east of the Ministry of Public Health headquarters on Brickdam. For a great many years, this playground was used by youngsters from the Lodge and Wortmanville areas as a recreation park, mainly for playing football.
That small playfield was the only piece of greenery which was available to two of the largest wards in Georgetown – Lodge and Wortmanville. It is now no longer green. It has been completely covered over by asphalt and now serves as a parking lot for vehicles from the Ministry of Public Health. This development deprives the youngsters of the small piece of land which had been used for years for football practice and games.
When the development of the site began, there was a notice informing the public that it would be closed. But there was no indication that it would be converted into an asphalted parking lot of the Ministry of Public Health. This is exactly what it is today.
The spacious D’Urban Park located opposite this playground had been out of commission for over thirty-five years, depriving the residents of surrounding communities of a recreation park. First, the PNC and then the PPPC allowed the 90-plus acre sward to become a virtual jungle. This meant that the residents, who were in the past accustomed to using D’Urban Park for sport and recreation, could no longer do so for well over three decades.
The PPPC began to reclaim the area from the jungle, but that project was abandoned after more than eighty million dollars was spent. When the APNU+AFC coalition came into office, it unveiled a massive development plan for the area, except that we are now learning that the project was being executed by a private company which was linked to persons close to APNU, and which had to be bailed out to the tune of $750M by the Ministry of Finance.
No accounts have ever been publicly published for the project and the Auditor General recently got a tongue-lashing from a government official for daring to make certain statements he made about the difficulty in accessing the records for this project.
It has been speculated that this project was really intended to create a more comfortable venue for the APNU+AFC political rallies. The venue is strategically located close to strongholds of the PNCR, the main party in APNU. During election season, APNU normally has it final rally at the Square of the Revolution, which occupies a place on the perimeter of the park. No evidence has even been produced to either confirm or dispel this speculation, and thus it remains conjecture.
D’Urban Park has become a monstrous development, with ugly looking stands and a pavilion which is not secure from the elements. But more disturbing is the fact that the entire green area has been covered over with crusher run. An internal asphalted perimeter road runs around the facility. Instead of developing D’Urban Park into a multi-purpose facility which could have been used for sport, the facility is effectively a military drill square. Instead of being a green space, it is a grey space.
It is a travesty that the children of the nearby communities have no place in which to play cricket or football or whatever else they wish to play after school. D’Urban Park really cannot be used for sport. The stands are attracting derelicts and all kinds of sexual activities are taking place in the stands at nights. Condoms can be seen strewn around the place. There is no proper security and no proper full-time management of the place.
All the talk, therefore, about the green Guyana is just talk. If under the notion of greening Guyana, a playfield can be turned into a Ministry’s parking lot, then something stinks in the green state of Guyana.