A gentler Guyana is emerging

Aug 26, 2018 APNU Column, Features / Columnists, News

---

(Excerpt from an address to the 20th Biennial Congress of the Peoples National Congress by H.E. David Granger)

Our coalition Government is building a Public Education System that is suited to the 21st century. Our educational policy will emphasise science, technology, engineering and mathematics increasingly but will not neglect the liberal arts. The pace of technological change demands the training of future generations of students and the retraining workers to be better equipped for the economy of the future.
The Public Education Transport Service (PETS) (known popularly as the 3 B’s Initiative) was born out of the recognition that many parents found it costly to send their children to school. Our coalition Government has prioritized educational access, attendance and achievement. The changes, though incremental, are measurable.
PETS has had an impact on school attendance and household savings. The Service has distributed 1,111 bicycles, 27 buses and 9 boats. PETS is saving parents money; in some cases the savings can be as high as $48,000 per month per student – money which can now be funnelled into improving the household.
The Regional Public Broadcasting Service (RPBS) has taken public communication to a higher level through a series of radio stations in four new regional capital towns – Bartica, Lethem, Mabaruma and Mahdia – and other satellites. Remote, rural and hinterland communities, for the first time, can now listen to regular, reliable news reports from their regional capitals and elsewhere in the country.
Our coalition Government, through the work of the Ministry of Social Cohesion, is pursuing policies to create a more cohesive nation. We aim at the eradication of poverty and the elimination of inequality and the disparities in income between the coastland and the hinterland and between rural and urban areas.
Our coalition Government is promoting respect for each other’s culture and for our diversity by the recognition of national ‘arrival’ days, for the first time. We now observe Chinese Arrival Day, Indian Arrival Day and Portuguese Arrival Day. The observance of other historic events that are of significance in our multi-cultural society enriches our lives and embellishes our cultural calendar.
A gentler Guyana is emerging. Women attorneys in the legal profession have been appointed Senior Counsel for the first time, and the number of women national awardees exceeded those of men, also for the first time.
Women contributed to building our country and our Party. We believe in gender equality. The PNC led the way forward by presenting the State Paper on Equality for Women to the National Assembly on 15th January 1976. It aimed, among other things, at:
…securing equality of treatment by employers of men and women workers as regards terms and conditions of service and generally for the purpose of making sex discrimination unlawful in employment, recruitment, training, education and the provision of housing, goods, services and facilities to the public.
The State Paper ushered in several major changes in Guyana’s laws, two of the most important being the Equal Rights Act (ERA) and the Prevention of Discrimination Act (PDA), which sought to make discrimination on the basis of gender, race, religion, or status a criminal offence.
We are mainstreaming youth development. We have promulgated a National Youth Policy which has been adopted by the National Assembly. The ‘Policy’ aims at accelerating youth involvement in decision-making, improving their social emotional and cultural skills and producing an enterprising and educated youth workforce.
Our coalition Government has re-invigorated the system of local democracy. We have ended the previous regime’s odious practice of removing elected municipalities and installing the ignominious ‘interim management committees.’
Local government elections were held on 18th March 2016, less than a year after we entered office and after an intermission of almost twenty-two years since the last elections were held on 8th August 1994. These elections have empowered our citizens, energised our communities and eliminated one of the sources of strife and stagnation.
We convened a National Conference of Local Democratic Organs. It has become a vehicle to promote greater communication and meaningful cooperation between the regional democratic administrations, the municipalities, the neighbourhood democratic councils and Central Government.
We established four new towns – at Bartica, Mabaruma, Mahdia and Lethem. We announced a policy of regional development aimed at ensuring that every region will be led by a capital town to drive the delivery of public services and to promote economic growth. The progress being made by towns under democratically-elected municipal councils has been measureable.
Villages are central to local government. It was with this consciousness that, as leader of the Opposition, I moved a motion in the 10th Parliament calling for 7th November to be designated ‘National Day of Villages.’ The motion was approved by the National Assembly, but the previous regime never implemented it. It was as President, in 2015, that I officially declared a ‘National Day of Villages.’
The nation is haunted, still, by the ghosts of the dead who perished in the carnage and rampage of criminal violence of the deadly ‘Troubles.’ The nation’s soul has been scarred by the criminality and atrocities of that period.
Our coalition Government is bringing reconciliation to the nation and comfort to wounded families. It is pursuing truth and justice for the victims of the criminal violence perpetrated during the ‘Troubles’, including the bloody massacres – at Agricola, Bagotstown-Eccles, Black Bush Polder, Bourda, Buxton-Friendship, Kitty, La Bonne Intention, Lamaha Gardens, Lindo Creek, Lusignan, Prashad Nagar and elsewhere.
Our coalition Government is reshaping public administration to serve citizens through the delivery of improved public services. We shall enhance the delivery of services in the fields of business, citizenship, culture, the economy, the environment, public education, public health, public information, public infrastructure, public security, public telecommunications, natural resource management, social cohesion and sport.
The Department of Housing is redressing the discrimination and disenfranchisement of past house-lot allocations. It is prioritizing housing for low-income workers. It is providing a range of housing options for those seeking to own their own homes. 3,695 house lots and 195 housing units have been allocated since June 2015.
The Ministry of Business is making the country into a magnet for investment. The recent launch of the American Chamber of Commerce of Guyana is a sign of the growing interest in our country as a prime investment and business destination. The Ministry is stimulating the growth of small- and medium-sized enterprises and promoting self-employment, even as it seeks larger investments.
The Ministry of Public Health is addressing the well-being of our citizens. It is driving a national health policy, predicated on providing universal access to public health, promoting universal primary health care and emphasising preventive care. The Ministry is improving access to inclusive, reliable and quality health services.
The Ministry of Public Infrastructure is preparing Guyana for a new wave of infrastructural development. The development of the Linden-Lethem roadway and the erection of a new modern bridge across the Demerara River and a bridge across the Essequibo River, are all under active consideration.
The Ministry of Public Telecommunications is bringing internet connectivity to more communities, schools and public buildings. We are moving towards becoming a digital state with the priority on the use ICT to improve communications, particularly for hinterland communities.
The Ministry of Natural Resources is working to align the extractive sectors along a ‘green’ trajectory of development. The emphasis on ‘green’ development need not de-emphasise the extractive sector. The Ministry is pursuing polices to encourage adding value to extractive production and to enhance greater environmental security in the natural resources sector.
The Ministry of Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs is leading the national effort to reduce economic and social disparities between the coastland and hinterland, and to create a more equal society. A ten-point plan has been promulgated to promote identity, inclusivity and prosperity for the indigenous peoples.
A call has been made for the development of village improvement plans to drive the development of more than 200 indigenous communities. The government is working with the National Toshaos’ Council to enhance the development of these villages.
Our coalition Government, mindful of the need to improve human safety, started the reformation and retooling of the security sector. A United Kingdom-funded security sector Memorandum of Understanding has been negotiated and is being implemented with direct oversight from the highest office in the state – the Ministry of the Presidency.
Our coalition Government is making Guyana safe from within and from external security threats. A ‘frontline villages’ policy has been unveiled to ensure the safety of residents and the development of frontier communities that are guardians of our territorial integrity and protectors of our national patrimony.

---

---