THE DOWNSIDE OF PEAKING
Peeping Tom
Kaieteur News
March 16, 2007
Just before the last elections, Uncle Freddie introduced us to a new political term, “peaking” which refers to the tendency of government to initiate a series of projects to coincide with an event so as to gain increased public approval.
It has now become the norm for the PPP/C government to have a rush of developmental projects during election year in the hope that the effect of this sudden burst of development over a short period of time will leave the public feeling that great things are happening in the country and thus swing votes in favour of the ruling party.
Therefore in every election year we see a host of projects to build roads, schools and especially to install road lights on the main highways of the country.
This is what Uncle Freddie calls peaking. We saw it in the past during election year and we are seeing it again for Cricket World Cup.
One of the peaks expected for CWC 2007 was the installation of traffic lights. For years, road users have been under tremendous road stress because of non-functioning traffic lights. For years now, most of the traffic lights in the country have been out of order. Not months, years. For years, there have been complaints about this issue, and yet seemingly the government seemed oblivious to the frustrations caused by the non-working traffic lights throughout the country.
It is no longer just at Christmas that the situation becomes chaotic. It is extremely difficult and stressful today to be using our roadways without traffic lights to control traffic.
Accidents keep happening at busy intersections. And still the interminable wait to have these lights installed.
The whole approach of the government to the traffic lights issue showed just how caring a government we have. They are very caring; the question is however just whom do they care about.
Peaking however does not always work. Last year the PPP had an ambitious road works programme throughout the country to coincide with election year. A great deal of construction was planned. The PPP planned to peak in time for the election.
However in life there is always the unexpected and the PPP's plans in the run-up to the elections suffered a terrible setback when the supply of stone and cement became short on the local market, threatening many projects. The PPP's plan to peak for the elections backfired.
And so we came to Cricket World Cup 2007. We heard how the traffic lights were going to be fixed in time for the tournament. This upset a lot of persons who felt that it should not have taken this tournament to have the traffic lights fixed.
Many people feel insulted that it has to take this major event for so many things to be done in this country. Surely any government serious about development would have ensured that the many things to be fixed were fixed long before the cricket tournament and were maintained in good shape. However, the government is more interested in the vote-catching effects of development and therefore we are again witnessing a peak.
However, like last year, there has been an unexpected development that has backfired on the existing plans. It has been suggested that it may not be possible to install all the traffic lights in time for CWC 2007, due to the late arrival of equipment.
Unless we can have most of the lights installed we may end up in an embarrassing situation where a number of critical junctions remain without traffic lights. This is not the image that is desirable with so many tourists expected for the cricket.
One the other hand if years ago we had decided that we needed to get these lights in place, not for any special event, but for the normal development of our people, this situation which we are now faced with would not have materialized.
The government may feel that it benefits from peaking. However, the people are not fooled. The people of Guyana are smart and they know what is being done to impress them.
If a government tries hard to respond to the needs of the people and if the people see a concerted attempt to do so, there will no need for any government to have to peak during election year or for some special event. People will support a government that they believe is making a genuine attempt to assist them even if there are no projects during an election year.
Uncle Freddie reminded us just recently that it took the Rio Summit to bring road lights to the Railway Embankment near the area where two beautiful and imposing edifices - the Caricom Secretariat and the International Convention Centre - are located.
Surely, something must be wrong with the vision of development that only finds it necessary when there is a summit to place road lights in such an area. Surely, something is wrong with a government that builds such beautiful structures but does not have the foresight to ensure that the road approaches to these buildings are adequately illuminated at night.
Many of the things we are hurrying to do now should have been done years ago. Sure we have to spruce up for a big event, but does sprucing up have to mean doing things that should be done in the normal course of development?
Why is it that it has to take CWC 2007 for us to clean up the Seawall? Why did it have to take CWC 2007 for us to re-top so many roads and scope so many verges?
Why peak for an event when that peak is likely because of unexpected events, such as the late arrival of a ship, to end up being a squeak?