It was with a great deal of surprise that this writer happened upon the still-unfinished Little Creek Bridge, just outside of Ebenezer, this past weekend. What a thing! The greatest administration in the history of mankind cannot fix a two by four bridge, some nine months after it was severely damaged in the rains of last November. It is astonishing, the inertia and the incompetence, never mind the heartless way in which those in high places have abandoned the good people Roun South.
We have written in these very editorial pages of the administration’s disregard for Roun South,and after much administration dilly-dallying, it appeared that those in high places had recently found religion. After all, with much fanfare and flourish, they made a great show of fixing the long-forgotten bridge. Alas! It was all a pappy-show. They were not serious! The people Roun Southwere being taken for another ride on the dusty detour road around the damaged bridge.
Ah, the dust! There is a white film of marl on all the trees and leaves and grass in the area from the hundreds of cars that traverse the nightmare detour. It is a dastardly shame! How could something so simple, be so royally screwed-up? Talk about the gang that can’t shoot straight! That last is the title from a 1971 comedy caper, written by the famous Jimmy Breslin, and starring Robert De Niro as part of a team of unbelievably bumbling crooks. According to the narrative, “The members of this gang couldn’t run a gas station at a profit even if they stole the customers’ cars.”Sigh! This administration is in a race to the bottom with De Niro’s crew of idiots.
Of course, the smaller bridge further Roun South,next to the Cades Bay pineapple farm, that was severely damaged in the aforementioned rainstorm of last year, is also a clear and present danger. Drivers who are unfamiliar with the road could easily fall over its crumbling edge. But that appears to be of no concern to those in high places in this increasingly callous and out-of-touch administration. Not to mention the good parliamentary representatives from the area. It is manifest that they ‘don’t give a damn!’ We certainly trust that the people from the area, indeed, all Antiguans and Barbudans, will remember this shocking abdication of responsibility by those in high places when they come knocking on doors, soliciting votes.
And talking about nightmare roads! It has been several months since a trench was dug across Nevis Street, right next to the Seventh Day Adventist Church. This is right in the heart of St. John’s City, but the administration does not seem to give a fig. The trench is getting deeper, and ever more treacherous, but nobody cares.
The hill and valley at the entrance to the government treasury building on Independence Avenue is another existential threat, never mind, a terrible eyesore, but again, nobody cares. We hope that Antiguans and Barbudans are paying attention, and that we will be guided accordingly.
Interestingly, this inordinately prideful administration is again talking with much bluster about the wonderful transformation that is supposed to take place at the new state-of-the-art hospital on Nugent Avenue, just in time for the Covid resurgence here in our fair State. Sigh! As Ronald Reagan once famously said to President Jimmy Carter, during their second 1980 presidential debate, “There you go again!” Reagan had tagged Carter as a bumbler who did not know what he was talking about. The unflattering tag stuck to the hapless Carter. In like manner, we are saying to those in high places who insist on talking pie-in-the-sky nonsense about the Nugent Avenue hospital to cease and desist. Your flights of fancy are becoming quite tiresome. We will believe the malarkey about that hospital, when we see it!
Much like we will believe the drivel about the languishing Court House in St. John’s, and the myriad other sweet-sounding utterances, with precious little to show. What a shame, the glaring disconnect between this administration’s words and deeds. We are seeing a crisis of confidence!
Talk about being “weighed in the balance and found wanting!”It’s our gang that can’t shoot straight!
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