The use of pit latrines by people in the interior region has attracted much public discourse after Leader of the Alliance For Change (AFC) Nigel Hughes made a social media post about students in Phillipai, Upper Mazaruni, Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) using such outdated facilities.
But Hughes has come in for criticisms over his apparent “discovery”, with Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall condemning the politician for acting as though his party was never in government and were never afforded an opportunity to fix the very issues he is currently complaining about.
Speaking during his programme “Issues in the News” on Tuesday, Nandlall contended that Hughes “for the first time apparently, he is in the interior and is discovering these things.”
“This gentleman goes into the Upper Mazaruni, perhaps for the first time in his life, and he discovers the living condition in those communities, he has never seen this before. You see, he grew up in a privileged household…for the first time apparently, he is seeing pit latrine and he is seeing Amerindians using pit latrine. He has never, perhaps, used a pit latrine. He doesn’t understand that the entire Guyana other than a privileged few like himself were using pit latrine just recently,” the Attorney General said.
However, he noted that “I am not saying that we should continue using pit latrine. The use of pit latrine in 2024 by schools or by anybody is a deplorable thing and we have to change that.”
“And we are working every day to change that. But this gentleman believes with the wave of a magical wand, pit latrine can be converted into a flush toilet,” Nandlall added.
According to the Attorney General, “2015 to 2020, his party was in government, didn’t they know that it had pit latrine in Mazaruni? Didn’t they know that it had pit latrine in the Amerindian communities? Why they didn’t fix it?”
He nevertheless pointed out that, “We are now fixing them. But what did they do?”
“This gentleman wants you to believe and would like the country to believe that he is not part of the AFC and they were not part of the government up to four years ago,” Nandlall said, reminding that AFC officials held senior portfolios in government such as the then Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo, the former Minister of Natural Resources Raphael Trotman, and former Vice President and Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan.
“They were sitting in the government. Why they didn’t fix the pit latrine?”
Education Minister Priya Manickchand, also addressing the media at an event on Tuesday, explained that a contract has been awarded for some time now to have a modern lavatory facility developed at the Phillipai Primary School.
During a question-and-answer segment following the announcement of CSEC and CAPE results, she said, “first of all, Phillipai Primary has a block of flush toilets that the kids are not using. Secondly, there is a drawing and its fairly idiot proof and by that, I mean that any fool can pick it up and see what it means, it’s been awarded to a gentleman, the building is about to begin, a 10-toilet block.”
