By Pushpa Balgobin
in Mahdia
Mahdia and areas throughout Region 8 (Potaro/ Siparuni) are struggling to keep up with the dissemination of information, as there is no landline internet service.
Residents are fully reliant on smart phone technology for the internet with only one Internet café provider being found in the township of Mahdia.
The proprietor of the internet café told Stabroek News on Tuesday that his Internet connection has been down for over a week and there is no sign that the Guyana Telegraph and Telephone Company will be fixing the problem any time soon.
As persons in the Region look to cast their votes on Election Day, May 11, 2015 many are looking for promises that will be kept by either the incumbent People’s Progressive Party or the APNU+AFC Coalition. The chairmanship of Region Eight was clinched by the opposition following the 2011 general elections and there has since been a deep division between the council and the PPP/C-appointed Regional Executive Officer over development issues.
Residents told Stabroek News that most people are dependent on smartphone technology, “can you believe this in 2015 we don’t have landlines. We don’t have Internet we don’t…” one resident stated.
Continuing, the resident told Stabroek News that people in Mahdia needed services beyond mining and simple issues like phone lines and Internet connections needed to be addressed. She said that in the community, especially for residents who have grown up in Mahdia, they wanted to see the government take an interest in providing services that are often taken for granted due to their prevalence across other parts of the country, such as internet availability.
She continued that the lack of resources in the predominantly mining community was astonishing, “I moved here four years ago and it was a shock, it still is, this is a rich region right here in Mahdia. Money is in this region and we are still waiting on landline service.”
The young lady said that cell phone reception was another issue as the internet access was not always reliable through smartphone technology especially when the weather was poor.
“Digicel same thing, GT&T, Digicel if the weather bad nothing sometimes, everyone here has a cell phone they have to, there is no other way,” She told this newspaper.
Region Eight Chairman Mark Crawford told Stabroek News on Tuesday that diversification and job creation were on the agenda, however he acknowledged that in this day and age resources needed to be provided to create an atmosphere conducive to job creation such as reliable power generation.
He asserted that while under his chairmanship since 2001 there has been steady progress in infrastructure such as rehabilitation of roadways and bridges, there was more work that needed to be done.
Stabroek News was additionally told that access to newspapers was difficult as they had to be accompanied on a plane. One regional councillor, who wished not to be named, told Stabroek News that she was reliant on online news agencies. She also noted the problems associated with a steady and reliable internet connection.
