…is whose land?
Funding for a Linden-Lethem Highway was sought by Burnham from the Brazilians way back in 1977. In the intervening 41 years, there were more proposals than you can shake a stick at! One even landed on the desks of Presidents Ramotar and Rousseff for a final signing off — following extensive studies. But for one reason or another, there was always a slip between the cup and the lip. Folks became quite jaded at the prospects of us ever opening up our interior.
But now there’s been a sudden volte face…due to – what else? – Chinese deep (and dark?) pockets! With Greenidge already signing off on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (B&RI), some folks are so sure about the completion of the Highway there’s already a land rush in progress. If Region 10 Chairman Renis Morian is to be believed, the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission has received so many applications for land – up to 30 acres — there mightn’t be any left for people from Region 10!!
Now, we’re talking about over 350 kilometres of highway, so that’s a whole lotta land being grabbed. According to Morian, most of the applicants are “rushing to secure plots of land to establish business ventures”, but that notwithstanding, he feels Lindeners must get first dibs, whether or not they can use the land!! “Outside of religion, race, party or whatever, we are saying once you are living in Region 10, while any Guyanese in any other region can apply, we think residents in Region 10 should first benefit.”
Now there’s definitely something wrong here. So, in addition to the flag for each Region, which the PNC had unilaterally decreed and distributed, Guyanese don’t have equal rights to their national patrimony? Should Berbicans have protested the award of that first contract for the Indian Arrival Monument at Palmyra because the contractor was from Linden? What next? Tolls on the Wismar Bridge on the road to Region 9 without any consultation with residents there??
Hold it!! That’s exactly what’s ALREADY taken place, with no heed given to Region ‘Niners’ when they pointed out goods from the coast – practically ALL their consumption – will become more expensive!! When you add the special LEN Fund to promote entrepreneurship in Linden after the billions that just disappeared from the LEAP Fund that was supposed to do just that…are we detecting different strokes for PNC folks? And we won’t even mention the electricity subsidy — which wasn’t even being considered for the 5700 fired sugar workers.
Your Eyewitness believes there must be a bipartisan committee set up to draft a development plan for the Linden-Lethem corridor.
Which should benefit ALL Guyanese.
…conjures doctorates?
UG’s been in existence since 1963, and hasn’t been able to produce a single PhD during that time. Not that there weren’t bright students around — a ton of them went on to shine in foreign universities like supernovas — but for the simple reason that it wasn’t able to put together a doctoral programme in a single subject. Now, that can be excused, since we’re a dirt poor country and were stretched to even fund the Baccalaureate programmes.
But how in the world can UG now summon up the brazenness to start awarding “honorary” PhDs?? Your Eyewitness has read the VC’s riposte – to others who’ve already expressed their incredulity – and found it wanting. Two fly-by-night Jamaican outfits did it, and that makes it right? Does this mean that our nursery schools can award “Honorary BSCs” to some of those once cute munchkins who graduated some years back? Isn’t this like…umm…DILUTING the value of advanced degrees? Did the Academic Council of UG approve this ridiculous move?
Why hang UG’s hat where its hand can’t reach?
…is Comedy Central
Junior Minister of Natural Resources, Simona “I is” Broomes, upbraided the mining syndicates on their behaviour, and insisted they “should play by the rules”. Just like she did when busing out those guards?
What’s with that inquiry, by the way?
