19 March 2024, Tuesday, 14:02
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Officials Cross The Line

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Officials Cross The Line
ULADZIMIR SHANTSAU
PHOTO: DW

It’s time to remind them that it’s the people who own this country.

Two years ago, six and a half thousand residents of Mahiliou demanded that the local authorities should purify the Svaitoye Lake – a favourite place of summertime recreation for Mahiliou dwellers. By that moment, the lake was in a terrible condition, and required urgent actions.

Already then, the answer of the city executive committee was catch-as-catch-can. They reported how many pool houses, sun loungers had been installed on the shore of the lake, and added that they had installed 16 “No Swimming” signs. The absurd is obvious. They could have installed pool houses and sun lounges in the city center with the same success. The lake is polluted; it just stinks, so that money was wasted on the pool houses and other things for swimming.

Still, the official reply states that a complex work had been started: they are going to involve a research institute to study the problem thoroughly, draw up design specifications and estimates, define the sources of financing, and then conduct the necessary work. This means, after the stupidity of having wasted the money, everything started looking ever so rosy in the future.

On June 22 this year, I submitted a collective appeal with a demand to report what was done to purify the Sviatoye Lake in two years, to the Mahiliou city executive committee.

It would be better if they gave me no reply at all than the one I received in the Mahiliou city executive committee personally. Firstly, it was much later than all the statutory deadlines for citizens' appeals - they should provide an answer in 15 days.

The officials have long forgotten about six and a half thousand signatures. Numerous publications on this topic in the media, including state ones, are ignored by the city executive committee; apparently, they have no idea about the ecological catastrophe.

The question is – why? Here are my observations. These authorities don’t give a damn about the citizens’ appeals.

Kolya’s dad came to Mahiliou last year, and blurted out the city wasn’t posh enough – and the officials rushed to fulfill all the whims of the dictator. They spent huge money on pavements alongside the Minsk highway, where no one lives, while it's the hell of a mess in the city yards. As for the triumphal arch at the entrance to the city from Minsk direction, this is really the last thing the population needs. However, the officials don’t care about the people’s problems. In this country, deputies and officials are appointed, not elected. And the most important thing for an appointee is to report before their bosses. And the first priority is to fulfill the will of one man, who thinks himself a master of the whole country, who lives in some other, parallel world.

However, according to the Constitution, it’s the people who own the country.

Let us remind the cocky officials about this. By our campaign against the Decree #3, we proved that we are on the people’s side, and are ready to protect the people’s interests, regardless of policemen’s batons, arrests, prisons and fines.

Uladzimir Shantsau, ucpb.org

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