Not so long ago people in Georgetown were duped, and manipulated to act against their own interest. This effort was so successful, the perpetuators are attempting the same strategy. However, they are so contemptuous of the Guyanese people, they did not even bother to reconstitute themselves. The Movement Against Parking Meters campaigned against parking meters, and now the same Movement Against Parking Meters has started to campaign for elections with the bloated and corrupt list.
The effort by Georgetown Municipality to introduce parking meters was commendable. However, it was undermined by lack of transparency, poor public relationship, and an unrealistic price structure. Normally, these defects would not be fatal flaws, since the municipality would have had the option to increase transparency, make adjustments to it’s PR strategy, and revisit the pricing structure. This was not to be.
The Movement Against Parking Meters, an organisation funded and directed by business interests, emerged to campaign against parking meters. This campaign was not against the lack of transparency, poor public relations, or pricing structure. It was against the idea of parking meters, period.
Why would business interests want to stymie the introduction of parking meters in the city? To answer this question we must ask ourselves three questions. Who arrive on Regent Street by 6:30 AM and park their cars until 6:30 PM? Who place containers on the road for days and weeks as they load or unload contents? Who behave as if parking spots, in the business district, in front of their properties are owned by them? Business interests. .
It was these business interests, though MAPM, who duped the people of Georgetown into fighting against something that would increase revenue for the city. The same city that would take that revenue to clean drains and repair roads in their communities. Cleaning drains and repairing roads were not concerns for the business interests, they live in upscale developments outside of Georgetown. So they funded MAPM, and duped people in Georgetown into campaigning against their own interest. Hence the campaign by MAPM was to look after the financial interests of a few people
This scam was so successful they decided to try it again. This time they wish to dupe people into campaigning for election with a corrupt list. Now it seems as if they are gearing up to fund MAPM for this new effort. No change is made to the name MAPM. Such is the contempt.