…Lethem
Your Eyewitness figures that with a country as vast as ours, our energetic Prezzie’s “walkabouts” to press the flesh of the people will inevitably get more than a bit circumambulatory than the casual strolls we’ve been used to with other leaders!! So, here he was one day in his native, central Reg 3 announcing a new Port at Parika and then onto Berbice to our east to announce advances in engineering and medical education delivery that’s gonna transform that part of the country. He then proceeds to Essequibo in our west and follows that up with a trip to Lethem in our deepest south – stopping to play a game of dominoes with the fellas at the local airstrip!! The head spins!!
He’s there for the annual Easter Rodeo and we ain’t gonna be surprised if he decides to mount one of those bucking broncos!! He took the opportunity to remind one and all about his Government’s goal to bring development to the farther reaches of our country!! With Lethem abutting Brazil, five hundred miles away from Georgetown, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that one of the keys to development there gonna be reliable transportation to the coastland and Atlantic.
The young’uns mightn’t know of the days when we had some of the largest cattle ranches IN THE WORLD in the Rupununi – hence the rodeo as an institution there!! The Rupununi cowboys would drive their cattle on a “cattle trail” across rivers, savannahs and jungle to the market on the coast!! In doing so, they eventually laid the basis for a Georgetown-Lethem Highway – which is finally being asphalted to create an all-weather thru-way!! While Prezzie was in Lethem, PM Phillips was officially commissioning 45 newly-constructed concrete bridges spanning the creeks and rivers across the highway.
The cattle industry can now be reignited since the meat can be transported on the highway in refrigerated trucks. Prezzie detailed plans for new abattoirs, storage, and processing facilities that will now serve both local and Caricom markets. The latter becomes viable because the highway will have a spur to a deep-water harbour in Berbice that’s on the cards!! For those of us who may want to go south – but balk at the rigours of the overland trip – Prezzie announced there’s gonna be a brand new municipal airport – better than the one at Ogle that’s handling international flights – to get us there in an hour!
The entire south – not just the Rupununi – can now become a tourist mecca since $3 billion has already been spent on concrete roads linking Region 9. So for those on the coast who wanna experience the new possibilities in Guyana, the message is “Go south, young man – and woman!!”
…with China
With the Government getting wise to China’s two-facedness on the existential threat Maduro presents to us from the west, they’ve been emphasising their “help” in our infrastructural development!! To listen to their spokespersons from their embassy, you’d think they’re handing out their loans for those projects like lollipops!! They don’t mention that – just like the Western Bretton Woods World Bank and IMF they bitterly criticise – they also insist on their own firms doing the work, but, in their case, THEY ALSO BRING THEIR WORKERS!! The money from their loans, therefore, end up back in THEIR pockets!!
They also invariably leave some of those workers behind to form colonies of shopkeepers who’re now displacing us locals and taking bread from our mouths!! But China provides LOANS that must be repaid – with interest – and we know that when they aren’t, they take over the project!!
They got pretty miffed after US Secty of State Rubio criticised their sloppy road-building on “Concussion Highway”. Echoing Shaggy, they said, “Wasn’t me!!”
