…with Suriname
Your Eyewitness has railed continuously about the terrible damage done to our psyches by the colonial powers when they ensured their policies violated the first Law of Geography. The said law quite logically declared that “everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things.” Makes sense, doesn’t it? Common sense! After all, let’s say you and me are sitting next to each other in a bus – wouldn’t sharing a sandwich be easier between us rather than with the fellas at the back!?!
But the Imperialists insisted that direct relations with THEM took priority over everyone else – they were the Mother Countries!! – even though they were thousands of miles away in Europe!! For instance, we in Guyana knew the most picayune details about places in Britain like – say, the highlands of Scotland!! But right next door to us was Suriname – across a river narrower than our Essequibo – and most of us hadn’t a clue about their country or their people! Until Burnham drove thousands of us over there as refugees!! Things closer to us were LESS related than things further away!
But at long last, that’s changing and that started with that follow-up visit of Suriname’s President Santokhi two years ago after he’d been here right after Pres Ali’s inauguration which was soon reciprocated. One could tell our leaders had hit it off at the personal level – and that’s very important going forward. The artificial colonial separation had further broken down at the people’s level with the “backtrack” in trade and people that proved a lifesaver for thousands in Berbice. President Santokhi’s wife, in fact, has Guyanese parents who’d fled to Suriname!! As such, the bonds of understanding between our two countries have become very deep at the top!
But these ties are now moving from the personal to the institutional! There was an agreement to build a bridge across the Corentyne River – one of the few riverine borders that aren’t located in the middle of the waterway. Suriname owns the river all the way to our bank at low tides. But the agreement gave us full involvement to select the bids and also in the construction!! And likewise with cooperation in health, security, business, petroleum, and power from gas. So finally, we’re going to live out the true meaning of the law of geography and become more related with our next-door neighbours!
Well, the bids for building the Corentyne just came in and there were two firms – the Dutch Ballast Needam and the Chinese Roads and Bridges company.
Your Eyewitness thinks Ballast Needam should have the edge because of their experience in building identical bridges in Suriname decades ago!!
…in Canje
Most Guyanese don’t really know about the tragedy that swept across the Canje area when David Granger’s PNC ignored their own CoI’s recommendations and shuttered Plantation Rose Hall six years ago. After all only he (and she) who knows it feels it!! And those residents have been feeling the pain, loss of dignity and degradation that come from a whole community losing their biggest source of employment and wages. Well, the PPP – unlike the PNC that spoke with water in its mouth on sugar – have kept their word to reopen Rose Hall and sugar’s being produced.
In the near term, the social aspect of providing employment is rightfully taking precedence, but management is also cognisant that they’ll have to bring costs down so the product can generate profits for the industry to become self-sustaining. Mechanical tilling and harvesting have been successfully introduced and now it was announced that mechanical planting will be going that road also.
Hopefully, the bottom line will soon be black – not red!!
…in “Opposition” strongholds
The PPP got the PNC tearing their hair out trying to stop the PPP from gaining membership in areas they’ve taken for granted to vote for them regardless. But a new day’s dawning as folks start voting for their interests rather than ethnicity!!
