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ERC scrutinising capital work projects
– intends to ensure communities are receiving full benefits
Contracted capital work projects undertaken countrywide are currently being scrutinised by the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) with a view of ensuring that they are in accordance with the recommended stipulations. This is according to ERC Chairman, Bishop Juan Edghill, who revealed that under Article 212 D of the Constitution of Guyana, the ERC is mandated to ensure equal opportunity and access to all.
As such, he noted that ERC officials were tasked with conducting visits to various capital work projects that are being executed to establish the actual work location and to ascertain who are the true beneficiaries as well as the size of the projects.
Bishop Juan Edghill
“Often we would have had persons indicating that in the capital works projects only some villages and communities were benefiting. So we went physically to see these projects whether it was a road, a koker, sea defence, school extension or hospital; wherever those projects were being undertaken we did physical visits to determine what was taking place,” Edghill asserted.
The highlight of the visits countrywide, Edghill said, was to meet state sector employees and all the providers of goods and services that operate and execute programmes on behalf of the state. This move, he said, was crucial to ensure that in executing programmes there was equal opportunity and access to all. “This would have meant meeting with persons such as the Regional Health Officers, Regional Education Officers, Regional Engineers, the Superintendent of Works, various state agencies and departments like the National Insurance Scheme, Lands and Survey, Forestry Commission, the Geology and Mines and a whole host of others, examining what is taking place in the various regions to ensure that Government programmes are not only reaching some of the people but all of the people.”
Edghill revealed that the ERC is at a stage of desk analysis. “We will have to look at what we would have seen, what was the projection for the region and compare that to what would have happened over the last few years because you just can’t take that in isolation because if works were done in one village last year you don’t expect that same village to be benefiting again this year. So we are doing the desk analysis at this time.”
Also as part of its regional visits, the ERC visited three key locations to conduct workplace meetings. These were the New Amsterdam Hospital and the Skeldon Sugar Factory in Region Six and the Bi Shan Lin International Forest activities in Kumaka in Region 10. Schools across the country were also engaged as part of the ERC’s public education work. In this regard, ERC’s Head of Public Education and Awareness Unit, Ms Yolanda Ward, said that the ERC met with a total of 52 schools. The visits to the schools, Edghill said, represented the activities of the ERC over a one-month period, and therefore do not represent the total of what was done all year by the body. “We need to make people aware that the Ethnic Relations Commission is not a Georgetown air-conditioned office-bound institution. We are here to serve all the people and for those who are receiving reports and questioning why we have not been to their communities I can tell you it is an ongoing work…”
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