AFC prime ministerial candidate Raphael Trotman says that once the party is in power it will open a university campus in Linden and engage the government of Brazil regarding construction of the Linden to Lethem road.
On Wednesday the first media forum of the Linden Fund Trust (LFT) was held in town hall style in the conference room of the Linden Business Centre of Linden Enterprise Network (LEN) on Republic Avenue, Linden. The initiative is a part of the broader Linden Community Forum (LCF) that was unveiled during the Linden Town Week celebrations this year.
The LFT has invited the three major parties contesting the general and regional elections to make presentations on their respective development strategies for Linden and the wider Region 10.
So far two of the major parties have responded to the LFT’s invitation – the AFC and the APNU with AFC leading the first session which was held on Wednesday.
Trotman said that a University of Guyana campus was a long overdue element in the town and once the AFC is in power, residents can be assured of this materializing in no less than two years.
The UG campus in Linden would be offering courses related to the developmental needs of Regions 7, 8, 9 and 10.
The party said further that the education system of the country has to be re-worked and they supported the stand taken by the principal of the Wismar Christianburg Primary School Cleveland Thomas who they said was the only one to take a public stand against the ministry’s social promotion of students.
Blocked out
Linden, according to the AFC, is deliberately blocked out from the rest of Guyana with the government owning and controlling the lone television station in the town.
Trotman recalled a motion being moved to allow Linden to have private television stations. “I think it is well known where we stand and I think it is a part of the suffocation of a people by this government …. there are a number of applications in for persons who are interested and the people of Linden must be liberated mentally.”
As stated in their action plan for Region 10, the AFC leaders said that they would be re-engaging the government of Brazil to commence the construction of the Linden to Lethem road.
The AFC Region 10 policy includes seeing the town becoming the second administrative centre of Guyana, developing the 200,000 hectares of the intermediate savannahs for citrus, cattle, legumes, and vegetables as the country’s second frontier for agricultural development, and developing the Tiger Fall hydroelectric site over the long-term.
Moreover, electricity will be tied to industrial development and alumina production.
There are also plans to intensify block-making capacity using lateritic bauxite and this would be supportive of the AFC’s housing policy.
Furniture manufacturing and value-added wood products would transform Linden into the main entry point for the eco-tourism expansion.
The APNU is set for a presentation on Monday.
AFC presidential candidate Khemraj Ramjatan was advertised to attend the forum but according to Trotman he was out raising funds and was scheduled for another national television event.
Accompanying the AFC’s prime ministerial candidate was former Minister of Health who served under the PNC government and present parliamentary candidate with the AFC, Richard Van West-Charles. The duo spent over fifteen minutes each elaborating on the major action plan of the AFC and Linden in particular before fielding questions from the media and those submitted to the moderator Jeffery Trotman were directed to the panellists.
Town council
One of the questions posed by Guyana Chronicle correspondent Joseph Chapman sought to get a response to the present structure and functioning of the Mayor and Town Council and Regional Democratic Council and the power that is vested in the bodies as it relates to hiring and firing of Town Clerks and REOs.
“The chief executive officer must be hired and fired at the will of the council….. There has to be a change that says that the Chief Executive Officer, Town Clerk or REO must be appointed by council and they submit to council and not submit to higher authority that is in Georgetown or elsewhere,” Trotman declared, prompting loud cheers and roars in Linden.
Trotman pointed out that of the ten administrative regions Linden stands alone with regards to having a REO and Town Clerk of the PPP/C while the RDC and the Interim Management Committee (IMC) are PNCR-dominated. Van-West-Charles on the other hand was very critical of the existing RDC on the grounds that it was expected they would have invited members of the community to participate in key discussions and participate in the decision-making process as well as the issue of the shifting of resources.
“What we have now is the centralization of resources in the government and which permits the play of nepotism and the whole corruption of contracts which are to be operationalized at a local level have an input at the central level,” said Van-West Charles, adding that under the AFC residents are going to witness a total shift of powers in terms of resources and decision making.
He said that this would pave the way for residents to be more informed and involved in developmental and other activities that are to be done in the community, especially as it relates to the awarding and execution of contracts.
Meanwhile, President Bharrat Jagdeo’s One Laptop Per Family initiative came in for serious criticism which according to Van-West Charles is a clear demonstration of control by the existing government. He said that they had not created an environment for all citizens to be independent.
“They are importing laptops outside of the point of creating jobs, I also want to move to a point in which I can create wealth, and I can go into a store and decide what type of laptop I want or what type of Blackberry I want.”
The evidence of the stifling of independence was also tied to the hundreds of women who are employed as Drainage and Irrigation (DNI) workers. Van-West Charles contended that most of those women on DNI works have valuable skills and knowledge which if tapped will help them to create businesses of their own.
The discussions, however, were rushed because of the extremely late start and other commitments by participants.
