Town Crier announces an invitation from the King and Queen

Dear Editor, “Hear ye, hear ye!” It hath been decreed by the Queen and King of the City that henceforth in August, 2018 there shall be a City Week celebration costing nineteen million dollars.

Passing the Stabroek Square a week ago, I encountered a grand launching ceremony with the Queen, King and Town Criers announcing to their subjects, royal plans for ruckus and revelry for ten days in August. Is this a special send off for these officials? Of course, this royal launch turned out to be not so regal, as the event was sponsored by a beer company and was far from a family event as announced.

“Oyez, Oyez, Oyez Citizens of Georgetown,” get out your Sunday Best, men and boys put on your three piece lounge suits and top hats, women and girls your long dresses and skirts, the Queen and King despite the business cycle contraction in the city, shall be having a gala dinner at $8,000 a plate, and a cocktail reception at $5,000 a head, for the young at heart there will be ‘Georgetown gone wild’ beach party at the Beach Front on the seawall. As it is said, ‘Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make them mad’.

But it does not end there, citizens will be able to drive through pot-holed, crime ridden streets and past mounds of garbage, to attend a number of cultural, sporting and other forms of social entertainment.

Never mind the profusion of mosquitoes, rodents and vectors in the city, there will be a Health Fair. There will be a cultural explosion even though the municipality has no programmes or facilities to promote cultural diversity in the communities. They say that a hypocrite is a politician who would cut down a greenheart tree then mount the stump and give a speech about conservation.

Imagine the audacity of the Council having a ‘Senior Treat’ when for many months their own pensioners are subjected to inordinate delays in receiving their pensions. One wonders why the need for municipal games, when they play games with the citizens all of the time. Whether it be with their property rates, their health at the Abattoir and rat infested markets, with the Constabulary playing cops and robbers in the markets and Russian roulette with citizens? Or is it that the Queen and King have gotten tired playing scavenger hunt around the world?

And could you imagine their cheek of expecting the business community (whom they have attacked many times with unreasonable container taxes and the failed and scandalous parking meters), and the vendors (whom they have chased from pillar to post time and time again, after collecting their votes) to participate.

But more acerbic is the fact that even their own staff members are reluctant to be a part of the preposterous city week celebrations, since no effort is being made to pay them their outstanding retroactive and other payments that they are due.

Actually even though it is their celebrations, the only invite that was given to the municipal staff was to the church service, with invitations to the big events going to a selected few friends and family. Yours faithfully, Riley Matthews