GAICO pledges 10 street lights to light up Parfaite Harmonie

By Lakhram Bhagirat

GAICO Construction Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Komal Singh has pledged to donate 10 street lights to the La Parfaite Harmonie Housing Scheme on the West Bank of Demerara after residents complained to Social Protection Minister Amna Ally about the dark streets and criminal elements attacking them as a result.

The pledge was made on Saturday at an outreach in the community. The residents said that there was a need for improved street lighting since robbers were targeting them. They also stressed the need for a Police Outpost in the community.
Minister Ally said she would continue to do everything to ensure the children were kept safe. Just last week, Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan visited the community and had addressed several pressing issues, including security and the matter of older men preying on children in the community.
Ally, whose Ministry deals with the welfare of children, encouraged the community to form groups to carry out patrols for the protection of their children while reassuring residents that she would follow up the request for better street lighting with the relative authorities.
It was at this point that Singh, who resides in the community, pledged his support towards lighting la Parfaite Harmonie. In addition to the street lights, Singh would also be donating a bus as part of the Five Bs initiative. The bus would be handed over to the Regional Education Department very soon.
Additionally, residents are requesting that the access street to the primary school be lighted, since some students go there late in the afternoons especially close to examination time for after-school study activities.
For years, residents in the Housing Scheme have been petitioning the relevant authorities to have their streets lighted and the bushes cleared from the sides of the roads, since ever so often criminal elements would ambush them. The residents also complained about the lack of a proper road network since most of the roads were rapidly deteriorating with little, or, in most cases, no maintenance work being done.
Back in August, the Housing Minister had said that works were supposed to commence on the roads in Westminster and La Parfaite Harmonie, through a reformulated Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) loan, but the works are yet to commence. The estimated cost is somewhere around $500 million.