Hours before Kuwait's Prime Minister, Sheikh Nasser Mohammed Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah was due to arrive in Guyana  for an approximately 180-minute long official visit, a massive clean-up exercise of sections of Georgetown, was continuing up to late Sunday.

 

Kuwait and Guyana are expected to sign several agreements during Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah's three-hour visit here. The agreements are in the areas of Trade Economic and Technical Co-operation, Air Services, The Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of  Fiscal Evasion with respect to Taxes on Income and on Capital, and the establishment of a Joint Commission.

The clean-up is expected to portray a spick-and-span city to the Kuwaiti delegation in contrast to the heaps of garbage and overflowing garbage bins to which city residents have grown accustomed for several weeks. That's because contracted waste disposal companies have refused to work until they are paid millions of dollars owed by the municipality.

The fence around State House, the president's official residence, was repainted earlier this week and on Sunday lights around the fence were being repaired and replaced, ahead of the July 19 visit.

The parapets on Main, Carmichael, Camp, and New Garden Streets as well as Avenue of the Republic have been trimmed and usually stuffed and over-flowing public refuse bins have been emptied. Trees along Camp Street were being white-washed.

 

While parts of the city will at a glance appear much cleaner, poor drainage and a huge population of vagrants will evidently remain major bug-bears long after the Kuwaiti delegation leaves. A Venezuela-funded home for the destitute is being built at Onverwagt.

City Mayor, Hamilton Green said he was unaware that central government has provided any direct or specific funding for the clean-up exercise but he noted that the Town Clerk was asked by central government to cooperate in sprucing up parts of the city.

"It's an effort that we're happy to be a part of because, for us, a State Visit is above partisan politics," Green told Demerara Waves.

City Council trucks, manned by prisoners, that usually collect heaps of household waste on city streets as part of a contingency plan were re-deployed to help with the clean-up.

 

The City Council and central government are in an ongoing feud over the management of the city, with the Bharrat Jagdeo administration calling on city hall to cut its apparently bloated work-force of little more than 900 workers and the council demanding that government pays outstanding taxes.

 

Local Government Minister, Kellawan Lall recently told reporters that government was unwilling to bail out the Municipality and would prefer to see the city fall into a health-crisis to remove the councilors.

 

"Well, if there's a health-crisis in the city, I would be glad because it will remove the city council; they'll be responsible for it," Lall said when asked whether government preferred to spend more money on a health-crisis in the city than paying the garbage-collection companies directly.

 

Lall said central government was spending a lot of money on utilities, road repairs and other services in the city. At the same time, he said $75 million of the $1.6 million being collected monthly by City Hall is being used to pay its staff.

 

Local government elections have not been held since 1994, partly due to delays and disagreements in revamping the local government laws and regulations to give elected bodies more autonomy.

By the time the Kuwaiti Prime Minister wraps up his July 11 to August 1 tour  to this part of the Western Hemisphere, he would have visited Antigua and Barbuda, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Cuba, Guyana, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay.

Without going into details, the Kuwait News Agency said the Sheikh's aim is to discuss a "spectrum of issues and subjects of mutual interest" and "give a fresh push to their economic partnerships."

Guyana's President, Bharrat Jagdeo visit Kuwait in January of this year when two cooperation agreements were signed to boost what the two countries vaguely referred to as "political consultations" and "cultural ties."