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New Amsterdam has a new Deputy Mayor
New Amsterdam’s new Deputy Mayor has high prospects and a clear vision for the future of the town. Harold Dabydeen, 61, took the oath of office of Deputy Mayor for the town of New Amsterdam before President Bharrat Jagdeo at State House in Georgetown on Wednesday.
He is replacing Mrs Hyacinth James, who passed away in February.
Dabydeen served in the position from 1994 to1995 under then Mayor Errol Alphonso and has been serving as councilor from 1996 until his date of appointment as second-in-charge of Berbice’s oldest town.
Harold Dabydeen
He was born at King Street, New Amsterdam and attended All Saints’ Anglican School and the Berbice Educational Institute. He then worked at an insurance firm after which he was elected a People’s National Congress (PNC) candidate to serve on the N/A Mayor and Town Council seat.
The Deputy Mayor, while speaking with Kaieteur News, said that his main aim is to “bring back this town of New Amsterdam to its glory”. He is very concerned about the amount of subvention money given to the municipality by the Government.
“The municipality has to have a good increase of subvention because it is only $10M per year they’re getting. Under our work programme that $10 M cannot do much at all and there upon I’m asking for an increase of subvention so the Town Clerk will be able to put up a new proposition of capital development. We need a tractor or two to do more work for garbage,” he said.
He added that he “wants to see New Amsterdam clean of garbage” and “ to see the drains clean”.
Dabydeen said that the foremost need he plans to address in the town is solid waste. “Littering has become endemic within the township of New Amsterdam. It’s a bad impression,” he noted.
He said that they have to “educate the citizens back again and teach the children in the schools”.
He noted that he intends to work closely with the business community to see how best they could bring the “town back to reality”. One of his main aims, too, is to foster a more fruitful relationship “and bring back the unity” with the Region Six Administration.
“I promised myself to write the Regional Chairman to have a day where we can go and visit. Most of the problems we’re having, I’ll try to air that with him and see what help he can give. I need unity to exist between the municipality and the RDC”, he said.
He believes that he “can break” the deadlock and back-and-forth chatter between the municipality and the RDC.
The politician also said that he wants to create citizens’ groups in every street in the town “so that there could be lights on every post”.
He said, “And in the citizens’ group arrangement, a secretary, a president and a treasurer is elected and you have committee members in the street. And they are responsible to pay the light bills for the street-lighting and to see the environment is properly cleaned in every street and nobody litters.
“And they will submit to the municipality every month a report about the street and the activities that go on in the street”. He said that each resident in the street can pay a small fee each month to the group so that the light bill for the lamps could be paid to the power company.
Dabydeen’s late cousin, former Barrister-at-Law, Bhairo Persaud, served as Mayor of the town from 1974-1976.
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