Latest update February 18th, 2025 1:40 PM
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Itaballi residents refute GGI community adoption
By Zena Henry
Some residents at the interior location of Itaballi are upset by utterances of the Guyana Goldfields Inc. (GGI), and have refuted claims that the company had been putting measures in place to improve the standard of living there, charging that the entity is seeking, “to make itself look good.”
The Itaballi Community Centre where the primary school students now reside and attend classes.
Published last Friday in this newspaper were reports of GGI allegedly adopting the Itaballi Primary School for the purpose of development and had thus been working extensively to upgrade the education institute and the community.
The residents, especially teachers of the primary school are however furious at what they said are gross inaccuracies in the information provided. They said that while GGI seeks to talk so much about what it did for the primary school, students have vacated the school since last September and now reside at the Community Centre in the village.
Secretary of the Itaballi Community Development Committee (CDC), Lindon Durant, along with residents, insist that nothing has been done for the community, contrary to the published information which seems to indicate that only recently the entity contributed to the primary school.
The newspaper report stated that one of the efforts of the Guyana Goldfields Inc. in promoting community development had been its corporate adoption of the Itaballi Community Centre.
It said that beginning several years ago, Christmas parties were hosted for the 180 students occupying and living in the school. It was also highlighted that the organization had first provided a Playground, then drinking water to the school.
Rehabilitation programmes such as cleaning and painting the school; fixing its rain-water technology system ; completely re-leveling the land; providing Solar Power to the school, a community library; fixing the toilets; providing school teaching aids; blackboards; cabinets and the provision of three additional play tools in the school yard were reportedly in the making.
Annual cricket matches were said to have started and sports equipment provided.
The Itaballi residents however said that GGI initiated a cricket match on one occasion, but nothing further. They are refuting the solar panel and the rehabilitation works which are reportedly in process.
They claim that the students left the primary school before school reopened last September, and now use the community centre for learning and accommodation purposes, because of the dilapidated state of the school and the fear of it collapsing at any time.
“Even at the community centre the students have to fetch water to flush toilets and for other purposes. There is no solar panel, fixing of toilets or provision of books and cupboards as reported. The cricket match the article spoke about was almost two years ago. There has been nothing since. 99.9 percent of the information is wrong; we want to know when all these things were done for the community.”
Consultant of the Guyana Goldfields, Eric Phillips told Kaieteur News that the works for Itaballi had been a proposal and that some of the ideas for the school had already played out. He highlighted that while the Canadian firm was working in the community, there were plans to upgrade and assist the location as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative.
Those plans were however halted, he said, when certain measures had to be put in place, which included the acquisition of a mineral agreement which would have assisted in the firm adopting the primary school, since a foreign entity could not do such. He pointed out that now that the students have moved from the school, the proposal will have to be reviewed, but apart from that, permission must be attained from the education ministry for GGI to do certain things for the school.
Phillips further asserted that in disseminating information about another CSR initiative, the Itaballi proposal was wrongfully released. He however noted that in the new week, the company plans to visit the community to re-evaluate plans for future development and coalition.
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