AFTER almost a quarter of a century without street lights along the main thoroughfare, Stanleytown, New Amsterdam residents celebrated on the streets, after more than 30 electric lamps were switched on in that area on Thursday night.
While the lights will provide a safer environment for residents, it will also help in minimising accidents and vending of narcotics in the area.
Retired Town Clerk Angela Collins said the lights went out in the 1990s and she is happy to see them in action again.
Initially, the town council had the responsibility for electricity along the main and cross streets in the Berbice Township, but had encountered several challenges, resulting in the unavailability of street lightings.
While she is grateful as a citizen of Stanleytown for the lights, she is pleading for additional lighting for the several cross streets, where criminal-minded persons have retreated. Former trade unionist Norman Semple applauded the current APNU+AFC administration for advancing development in the New Amsterdam Township.
“New Amsterdam, which is the capital of Berbice, unfortunately falls within Region Six, (East Berbice /Corentyne), and is managed by the People’s Progressive Party, but no work was done here. I spoke repeatedly to the current Chairman, but New Amsterdam’s neglect was due to politics.
“…Twenty-three years of PPP, because they were dissatisfied that New Amsterdam never voted for them, even though they had controlled the region, nothing was done, except at one time the parapet was cleared, and, because the stuff was never removed, the area became a dumping ground.
“It is this Government which has cleaned up this place, desilted the Republic Canal [reservoir] and is maintaining it. The Strand Road along Stanleytown was impassable for decades; that was rehabilitated and the Main Street and Republic Road were resurfaced in such a short period since the new government took over,” Semple said. He said he is satisfied with the amount of developmental works done over the past three years.
Guyana Chronicle Report.
