The total disregard for the city's building by-laws has been identified as one of the main reasons for the problems being faced by at least one contractor in the current 75 million dollars drainage exercise in Georgetown.

There is evidence to substantiate this claim, when anyone visits many of the newly constructed buildings and even some old ones, where builders waste including sand, stone and cement are left in drains after the job has been completed.

The contractor for certain parts of Georgetown Mr Lennox King has pointed to a new building now going up on Camp and Quamina streets where the council's drain at the junction is blocked with concrete from builders waste which had accumulated over time.

Another complaint is the way in which businesses and some residences are allowed to cover the drains without allowing sufficient access for the cleaning of these drains. Some of the manholes which have recently been constructed have reduced the sizes of the openings in the pavement where only a small bucket could be used to get to the bottom of the drains for cleaning purposes.

The storing of builders materials including sand and stone along the parapets is also another matter which is of great concern to some of the contractors. One discovery by the Lennox King team was the type of construction in the alleyway from Middle to Church streets between Camp and Thomas streets.

The material used is hollow blocks. Citizens have an opportunity of seeing first hand what works are being done in several parts of the city as far as the drainage improvement project is concerned by tuning in to GTV every Friday night at 8.30 pm. The programme is sponsored by City Hall.

Bourda market gets attention

At long last the City Engineer's Department will be doing something positive about the sanitary block in the Bourda market. It is to be repaired and if possible remodelled. The possibility also exists that the market's leaking roof will be done.

The Deputy City Engineer Beverly Johnson is to put up a project document, hopefully this week for the works to get started.

The state of Bourda market and the environmental problems which stallholders have to face everyday came to the fore at last Monday's statutory meeting of the City Council, with People's National Congress/R councillor Desmond Moses pointing an accusing finger at some of the council's senior officers.

He accused them of trying to frustrate the stallholders in Bourda, describing an explanation from the deputy city enginner as "a new spin" coming from that quarter, as she was pressed to give a definite time for carrying out the necessary repairs at the market. What appeared to be a bureaucratic log-jam set the scene for a concerted broadside from city 'fathers' and 'mothers' representing all three political parties... PNC/R, GGG and PPP/C.

The chairman of the Finance Committee and deputy mayor Robert Williams said $17M had been budgeted for the Bourda market for this year, but only a small amount of the money had been spent. He was surprised while expressing his disbelief.

The leader of the PNC/R faction councillor Oscar Clarke worried over the way in which the matter was being handled by his colleagues. "we are going around in circles... we seem not to be taking decisions and ensuring that they are carried out..."

Councillor Fitzgerald Agard who leads the PPP/C group around the horseshoe table wanted a definitive statement from whoever was responsible, as to when the work will be started at the market... "it is time for implementation..." he said.

The same old story

The controversy between the city council and the Guyana Power and Light Company which surfaces at every statutory meeting was yet again a topic for a lively exchange among councillors... at centre stage was the Merriman Mall which continues to be a `cross' which Mayor Hamilton Green and his fellow councillors will have to bear until the next Local Government elections. Although all the necessary installations are now in place for lighting up that part of the Mall from Cummings to Light streets GPL has refused to give the area power, until something is done about the council's indebtedness.

The plan by the council for that part of the Mall is the construction of a roadway which is still to be asphalted and turning part of that area into a playfield which is just outside the residence of former President Hugh Desmond Hoyte.

Deputy Mayor Robert Williams who presided at last Monday's statutory meeting said that since the site could be looked upon as a special area, persons outside the council should get involved.

It is obvious that the vision which moved the council under the leadership of Mayor Green to construct the Mall, which was launched with fanfare and calls for the small entrepreneur to take his rightful place in the larger business community, is no longer achievable. Whatever plan the visionaries had in mind has not worked and has left very many of those who were to become the new business leaders either in debt or forced to run.

That part of the Mall from Alexander to Bourda streets which was to be a showcase, in the main, for people in the craft business has given way to a variety of other businesses some wholesome some not so wholesome. I'll be dealing with the mall in subsequent round-ups.