Voting for the lesser of the two evils is to hide from your conscience

Dear Editor,

In conversations with Guyanese voters, the ringing refrain by wellintentioned Indo Guyanese and Afro Guyanese who seek to justify supporting the party of their ethnicity is that their party is ‘the lesser of two evils’.

In the Sunday 10th November, 2019 edition of the Kaieteur News under the caption ‘Emptiness and Nothingness’, political commentator David Hinds bemoans the undeniable truth that Guyana has not since independence ‘been able to throw up government

re-varnishing furniture and floors, or repainting kitchens and other rooms, the cans that held those products and their residue end up in landfills. While regular single-use batteries can be disposed of with household trash, ideally, they should be recycled. Rechargeable, lead-acid and button cell batteries are hazardous and should definitely not end up in landfills, nor should obsolete computers, cell phones and certain electronic toys. But again, no awareness programmes. Hence leachate, toxins and greenhouse gases bedevil our landfills. Then there are other types of hazardous waste like used mineral and motor oils, used darkroom chemicals, empty insecticide/pesticide cans among others that are dumped directly into drains, poured into the earth or also end up in our country’s landfills. All of this points to a ton of work that needs to be done and is beyond the current capacity of the EPA. It is appalling then that not only do we not see the government falling over itself to give the EPA the support it so desperately needs, which it should most definitely be doing, but this same almost bare bones agency is also expected to monitor big guns like those in the oil and gas industry. This would be hilarious, if it were not so serious. It is not as if we don’t have the Omai Gold Mines tailings dam collapse as a permanent example. In his recent interview with this newspaper, Dr Adams said, in relation to the oil and gas sector, that, “…while we believe that the companies will do

leaders with the capacity… to transform the society….’ He correctly blames ‘lack of visionary leadership,’ and complains that he is yet to hear any inspiring vision for change from the PPP, or the APNU

the right thing as it pertains waste management, we have our part to do and it is why we too are ramping up preparations.” There is not an ounce of naivety in Dr Adams’s statement, but perhaps some amount of warning. Often when faced with doing the right thing at a cost of millions of dollars and doing the cheaper thing which comes with some amount of risk, companies choose the latter. They are, after all, mostly concerned with making money. Guyana, therefore, has to do everything in its power to protect itself. One of the things that can be done almost immediately is creating public awareness of the dangers of hazardous waste. Building the capacity of the EPA is critical; it needs expert human resources, the capability for monitoring and evaluation, including technical knowledge and equipment. Government also needs to look at strong legislation and regulatory frameworks specifically geared towards dealing with hazardous waste. Ideally, all of this should be completed before first oil. Spending oil revenue on cleanups or in court does not seem like a good use of it.