We understand that there were a number of young people from Roun South who got together to repair the Cades Bay roadway. To those proactive young people, we say a heartfelt thank you on behalf of harried road users, and especially the road users from deep Roun South. We’re talking about people putting their hands to the plow and doing right by their community.
Of course, it is a deep and burning shame that it had to come down to this – that the struggling citizens of the south had to take of their own time, effort and money to do that which government is paid to do; to do that which is the primary responsibility of government – to provide for the building, maintenance and repair of infrastructure. Sadly, this ‘poor boast’ administration cannot even do that. – the simplest of things. So pathetic!
And there is more to this Kafkaesque nightmare for the good people from Roun South. If you recall, the Little Creek bridge was destroyed by the heavy rains of late last year. Immediately, the Public Works folks graded a dusty area on the eastern side of the bridge and closed the bridge proper to commuters. Seemed we were to get a new and improved Little Creek Bridge. Sigh! Alas and alack! This feeble administration was all pappy show. They have not done a stroke of work to the failed bridge since they cordoned it and set up the detour. Nada!
Even more disappointing is the fact that the approach to the cordoned area is poorly lit, and it is only by the grace and mercy of the Almighty, that someone has not run right smack into the collapsed bridge. And don’t talk about the poor signage and the lack of proper barriers. Not even in the backwoods of Bangladesh or Burma would the government erect anything so triflingly slipshod. Clearly, the people of Roun South have been done a disservice. Their tax dollars are not working for them. Tax dollars could not be at work on a road with as much dust and potholes and hills and craters as the Little Creek Bridge detour. We submit that it would be difficult to find constituents as abused and ignored by their representatives as the people Roun South.
Then again, we take that last back. Ignoring the people and abusing them is the stock in trade of this entire administration. Pick any constituency, pick any representative, and the plaintive wail of the people is the same – they can’t get in touch with the representative; they have not seen their representative in eons. Which beggars the question: do the representatives not care? Are they not concerned that they could take the people for granted, once too often? Well, based on their lackadaisical approach to the people and their problems it would seem not. Wethinks that they are saying, much like the Biblical Samson, when told that the Philistines were coming to get him: “I will go out as at other times and shake myself.”Sadly, as the scriptures declared following Samson’s unwitting vow: “He wist not that the Lord was departed from him.”
In like manner, these Mickey Mouse representatives are oblivious to the fact that the people have departed from them. The old gimmicks and catcalls will no longer suffice; the bs and the skullduggery will no longer cut it. This administration has been exposed as as one consisting of men and women of straw. They are all full of it – self-serving, self-enriching, self-aggrandizing. Empty suits, all! As mediocre and as unremarkable as ever! And the people know it.
The Roun South mess is a metaphor for the island-wide mess, it is ubiquitous. And the members of this administration are treading water – no new initiatives, no brilliant ideas to pull us out of this Covid downturn. With the exception of the dear leader, who seems to be doing all the thinking and talking for everyone else, and the Minister of Health, under whose portfolio this Covid problem falls, they are all silent, brains blank. Nothing to offer. They are just hoping that the pandemic will be over soon, so that they can go back to their mindless preening and posturing.
And the folly and foibles of Roun South remain much like the follies and foibles everywhere. Woe are we!
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