The European Union (EU) will not be offering support for the holding of the upcoming general and regional elections, according to Ambassador Geert Heikens.
Heikens, the Head of Delegation of the European Union to Guyana, restated this on Friday evening at a reception he hosted to celebrate European Day. Identifying 2011 as an important year for Guyana because of the elections, Heikens said, “the union has decided based upon experience—earlier, the last elections and our analysis done— not to set more assistance to the Guyana elections. I think this is a clear sign of our trust,” he said to the gathering that included Cabinet members, the presidential candidates of the main political parties and members of the diplomatic corps.
Guyana, though, is set during the course of this year to benefit from the tenth European Development Fund (EDF) which is valued at just below 51 million euros. This money, Heikens said, is to be used for general budget support and work on the sea defence. The ambassador also indicated that the EU has set a further 75 million euros to help with the sugar sector. This is in addition to the 90 million euros that had been set aside previously for the sector. Guyana was unable to tap into the full 90 million euros after the EU said that the country had disregarded the criteria for the disbursement of funds. Guyana had lost out of 6 million euros in budgetary support during the 2007/2008 year because of the late submission of the sugar action plan and an expenditure framework for sugar for the period 2009-2011.
During last year, the EU disbursed a total of 21 million euros (US$29 million) to Guyana. The majority of this money, Heikens said, was used in the areas of sea defence, low-income housing and the sugar industry. The disbursement for the sugar sector was used for the Enmore Packaging Plant.
Also addressing the audience was Prime Minister Sam Hinds who thanked the EU for its support over the years. The EU, he said, is the world’s largest economic zone and noted that it is a model for regional integration.
Speaking about the general elections, Hinds said the government was optimistic that the elections would be conducted in a transparent manner and that it would be incident free, like the previous polls held in 2006.
