President Donald Ramotar on Saturday announced that Government will build a technical institute in Region Nine to equip persons with the necessary technical skills to provide support services to the expanding and emerging industries.
GINA said that the President was at the time addressing hundreds of people from more than 50 communities in the North, South and Central Rupununi at Rodeo Ground, Lethem.
GINA said that Ramotar urged the people to prepare for the highly skilled jobs and opportunities for economic ventures that will be created through planned investments if his government is re-elected.
“The Rupununi and Region Nine is just a microcosm of what has been taking place in our country, and over the next five years we have more plans…Here can become a centre for creating higher paying jobs for our country and that is why the PPP/C Government has focused on preparing people to capitalise by providing free education from nursery to secondary and technical education, as well for those who did not complete the formal system,” he said.
The President told the gathering that government in collaboration with Brazil is exploring other possibilities for hydroelectricity in Guyana, and at present feasibility studies are being conducted to locate other areas of opportunities. He told the residents that the power lines for the hydro project will “pass through here and you will get power and we will be able to sell excess power to Brazil. That will allow us to develop our country to become a manufacturing country, and that will give us thousands of new jobs so that our people would have greater opportunities to earn a decent salary and make a living.”
GINA said that Ramotar assured Region Nine that the administration is working to put the infrastructure in place so that “we can turn our agricultural products into more industrial produce. We can transform cassava from the staple you eat, and also use it to make fuel…We want to produce new crops to broaden the base of the economy and increase our yield per acre, thereby increasing production. The savannah could capitalise on crops such as soya beans and corn and support stock feed for the livestock industry…The infrastructure we are putting in could allow us in a very short time to develop.”
The President added that the government plans to bridge the Kurupukari crossing and connect the entire Rupununi via road, as well as to Region Eight.
Education efforts have resulted in there being about 33 Amerindian doctors up from a single one in the past, GINA reported Ramotar as saying.
