Chief Executive Officer of the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T) Major General (retd) Joe Singh has expressed the view that the recent commissioning of the company’s new GSM cellular service at Mahdia significantly enhances the prospects for the broader economic development of the interior of Guyana.
Addressing the commissioning ceremony at Mahdia on Wednesday January 30 Singh said that the new telecommunications service provided “another facilitating step in developing the connectivity that will create opportunities for enterprise development, investments in a diversification outside of natural resource extraction – in agricultural crops and livestock, agro processing, tourism, and of expanding settlements equipped with the facilities and services that can be catalysts for population shifts towards the hinterland.
And according to Singh the many coastal challenges currently facing Guyana dictate the serious pursuit of “the strategic vision of previous generations” for the development of Mahdia.
“We have the very real threats to food security, the real threat of flooding as a consequence of erratic weather patterns and rising sea levels and the negative consequences of high unemployment among some sections of our population leading to dysfunctional attitudes and behaviour patterns,” Singh said.
And the retired Chief of Staff of the Guyana Defence Force and former Director General of the now defunct Guyana National Service is calling for the cultivation of “a creative, out-of-the-box thinking” that allows us to see Mahdia – “in the same way that Brazil saw Brasilia and Belize saw Belize City” – as a potential inland township which can be a focal point for rapid development.
Noting that the wealth and strategic importance of the Bartica-Mazaruni-Potaro region had already been proven Singh reflected on various pre-independence investments in the region including Minnehaha Development Company, the Eagle Holding Company, the Guiana Gold Company and the BG Consolidated Goldfields.
GT&T’s new 400 ft cellular tower – one of the highest ever built by the company – along with the attendant cellular installations was described by Singh as “one of the most challenging projects” ever undertaken by the company. He said that while the new service will not provide for all of the communication and information technology needs of the community, it is a step in the right direction.
GT&T is currently celebrating its 17th year of operation in Guyana and Singh said that the commissioning of the Mahdia site symbolizes the company’s commitment towards enhancing the well-being of communities throughout Guyana.”
In his address Singh alluded to what he described as the “pole of development for the region” which Mahdia represented. “This area has a legacy of hard work, pioneering initiatives, resourcefulness, innovativeness and technical competence which, in many cases and for a variety of reasons, we have failed to really capitalize on in charting a course for sustainable development,” he added.
In alluding to the potential of interior development outside the framework of natural resource extraction Singh, an active and outspoken conservationist who formerly headed the local office of Conservation International, noted that the extraction of minerals needed to take account of the fact that “these are not renewable resources.” He noted too that the timber extraction industry “needs rethinking in the context of the role of forests as a global resource for arresting the negatives of Climate Change.”
Earlier this year GT&T completed a cellular site at Kwakwani and during his address to mark the commissioning of the Mahdia site Singh announced that the company was due to complete a further three sites at Phillippi, Leeds and Moleson Creek by this weekend. He said that the February 2008 phase of GT&T’s ongoing cellular ‘buildout’ also included the erection of new sites in East La Penitence and South Ruimveldt, enhanced coverage at Bartica and new mobile services at Port Kaituma and Bartica.
