Leader of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) and A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) David Granger has repeated his pledge to residents of the Lethem to make their community into a full-fledged town under an APNU administration.
He said this would happen within one year of winning the next general and regional elections.
According to a release from APNU yesterday, Granger pointed out that the Rupununi – at over 58,000 km² – was larger than Costa Rica and six times the size of Puerto Rico. He argued that it was the largest region in the country yet it did not possess a single town. Granger, the release said, met residents of Tabatinga on the outskirts of Lethem who complained about land allocation, housing, drug-trafficking, solid waste disposal, street lighting, poor roads, high electricity tariffs, poor public services, unemployment, traffic confusion involving foreigners driving on the ‘wrong’ side and other matters.
Granger said that Lethem was fully-qualified to be a town like Anna Regina, Rose Hall and other places. Lethem, the release said, already had its own aerodrome, banks, electricity and water supply, hospital, hotels, magistrate’s court, military and police stations, a port-of-entry, churches, schools supermarkets, hardware stores and other amenities.
Granger condemned what he said was the government’s tendency to regard the Rupununi as a backward border region. He committed APNU to holding municipal and local government elections and to establishing Lethem as a town with its own freely-elected mayor and town councilors.
This, he said, was the fastest and surest way to encourage the commercial and economic development of the region.
