…history at City Hall
City Hall was built by the British when they really ruled the waves – between 1887 and 1889; and is as fine a piece of Gothic Revival as you’ll find anywhere. Can anyone conceive of building an edifice like that in two years flat – and for $56,000? Not by this lot that presently occupies it!
Former PNC strongman Hamilton Green was Mayor of Georgetown for 21 years, and even though he regularly complained about the building’s deterioration, he did absolutely NOTHING about fixing it. The building’s made of wood, for goodness sake! Living up to our stereotype as carefree louts, he jetted off to foreign climes with regularity to usher in a “New moral rearmament”!!
Yet the very first act of the PNC-led coalition was to award Green an Order of Roraima for his (non-existent) efforts! So we really can’t blame Hamilton Green’s successors – Chase Green and Royston King – for also jetting off into the blue yonder and turning a Nelson’s Eye to the edifice that was literally crumbling over their heads, can we? This is, after all, the PNC way!
Remember Burnham expending millions and millions on Mass Games while babies were dying of malnutrition?
So this Mayor and Town Clerk spent $500 million on Independence festivities while City Hall inexorably disintegrated. Well, sooner or later, the sh*t had to hit the fan; or, in this case, a piece of roofing had to hit the ground! So the Mayorality’s reaming its head off for millions to fix the plummeting disaster, but, of course, what takes priority is the $20 million it has already requisitioned for another “jump-up”!
When City Hall was planned, the architect named the design “Damus Pitimusque Vicissim” – meaning: “we give, and we ask in turn”. The PNC mayors — it’s very clear — only ask, and NEVER give!! Their present refrain echoes that old British Nursery Ryhme “London Bridge is falling down/Falling down, falling down./London Bridge is falling down,/My fair lady.”
But which “fair lady” would come to the rescue and rebuild City Hall? Not this Patricia Greene, who actually has the responsibility, like Eleanor of Provence, consort of Henry III, who had custody of the London Bridge revenues from 1269 to about 1281. This “fair lady” and her henchman would rather seize public spaces to build mansions for themselves!
But it all comes down to how far the citizens of Georgetown – PNC supporters, by and large – are willing to be led with rings in their noses. Isn’t it time they elect someone who would do what was done for London Bridge?
Build it up with stone so strong,/ Dance o’er my Lady lee,/ Huzza! ’twill last for ages long,/ With a gay lady.
…the blame game
So this Government spokesperson addressed a gathering of top bureaucrats from the Ministries – PSs and REOs and others of that ilk — and told them: “Senior officials should step up their game”!! Can you believe it? What about the Ministers, who advised and were the ones who set the policies for them to execute? Are these folks — who “aren’t pencil/mouse-pushers” — supposed to be mindless robots to carry out policies that are patently ridiculous?
Your Eyewitness doesn’t have to talk in the abstract. Exactly how can the PS in Agriculture, for instance, “up his game” after the Minister’s decisions on GuySuCo?? Close an estate, promise to “diversify”; renege on the promise; close three other estates to “stop subsidies”; fire 4000 workers; reopen two of the closed estates and ask for $30 billion!! Even if the PS were Black Panther, there’s no game to “up” in this madness!!
What the Government should do is to gather all its Ministers and run a seminar on governance.
The President should have a refresher in Constitutional Law!!
…the family business
Junior Minister of Finance, Sharma, confessed that of the 50 audits done on Government agencies to unearth the “billions and billions” allegedly siphoned off by the PPP, only 5 were sent for prosecution.
And no one’s been convicted!! It’s a “shad, shad situation”!!
