Guyana is leaping from one disaster to another. Indeed, all the disasters could have been avoided with proper planning and execution.
The first disaster in recent times was the massive flooding in the city. There were some rains that caused people to lose property, livestock and to suffer infections. Children were affected but there was no mention of this.
From appearances one was left to believe that there was some water on the land that eventually ran off. When people began to gravitate to the city in search of jobs many had to seek housing accommodation. Landlords began to sense a fortune.
Some converted one-room apartments into multi-room facilities. They would further subdivide a room by adding pieces of plywood. The already small rooms could scarcely accommodate a bed so people also slept on the floor.
That was where the water found many, some on old bedding and others on foam mattresses. People always try to hide their poverty so when Local Government Minister Priya Manickchand was walking around with Wellingtons –we say long boots–on to navigate the floodwaters she kept to the locations where the public roads were.
She never saw the inside of the flooded bottom flat dwellings. And for good reason. The dwellers were ashamed of their condition and rushed to take advantage of the sunshine that peeped out after the rains.
That was the easy part. It is well known that drains in the city are often the repository of everything under the sun. Sewage, garbage and the occasional dead animals end up in the city drains. The water that overflowed the drains and into people’s homes carried many of these things.
But this escaped the notice of the Local Government Minister. Some enterprising people took with them bleach and other cleansers to the affected residents. There was no apparent support from the government.
It would be interesting to see the number of cases that visited the Georgetown Public Hospital in the wake of the floods. Perhaps the hospital never made the connection. There was no report of any outbreak.
No sooner had the flood waters receded than fuel disappeared from the gas stations. People outside of Guyana could not understand this. The comments were almost all the same. They contended that Guyana was producing oil, was one of the fastest if not the fastest growing economy in the world, and should not have an issue with fuel.
It took a lot of effort to explain to them that Guyana does not refine its oil, that it grabs every cent it could get by selling its share of the oil to countries like India.
The fuel crisis is difficult to understand. If there was a problem with the refineries because of the war between Iran and the United States that needed to have been explained.
But the government never said a word so one morning motorists woke up to the fact that the Mobil gas stations were the first to runout. Mobil is part of the ExxonMobil partnership that is drilling off shore. Soon, others followed.
Some can remember when Guyana experienced a similar situation during the 1990s. In those days Guyana did not have money to buy anything. The People’s Progressive PARTY cussed Forbes Burnham and his People’s National Congress. But Burnham had died in 1985.
Today Guyana has money like sand. It has so much that money is wasted on many things. There is the gas to energy project, the many road constructions that fail almost as soon as they are completed, the many hospitals and health centers that cannot be properly staffed, and the cancellation of programmes for no other reason than they were conceptualized by an opposition party.
The Guyana Energy Agency reported gasoline import costs surged 38.5% between February 22 and March 17, amid disruptions in global oil markets linked to the Iran conflict. There was also the contention that the shipments to Guyana were disrupted by the US-Iran conflict.
Guyana obtains refined oil from Curacao and Trinidad. If the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is responsible, then one must consider that only 20 per cent of the world’s oil pass through the Strait.
Besides, there were no reported of fuel shortages in other Caribbean countries. Jamaica and Trinidad have larger populations than Guyana. They also have more vehicles. Somehow, they avoided the shortages that are plaguing Guyana.
The critics of the government say that the situation resulted from mismanagement. One thing that must be noted is that the people expect additional disruptions. They are buying surplus fuel to the extent that the Guyana Energy Agency has issued a warning about selling fuel in unsuitable containers.
Generally, the government does not disclose information readily. When the fuel crisis hit President Irfaan Ali came forward to merely announce that fuel shipments were coming to Guyana.
The Gas to Energy project that should have been completed two years ago is attracting almost twice the money than was initially planned.
Without a feasibility study the current government shifted the project to Wales, West Bank Demerara. The soil simply could not accommodate the power station but the government could not know. It did not conduct any soil test.
That has proved to be very costly, costly to the tune of US$102 million. The government never told the nation that it lost the arbitration with Lindsayca. Was this money paid through the Consolidated Fund? There is no record of the government going to the National Assembly for the money.
