Despite years of preparation, Parika is not considered a priority for township status, Minister of Communities Ronald Bulkan says.
“The priority is to deal first with the administrative centres of the regions,” Bulkan told Stabroek News yesterday. Bulkan had recently identified Bartica in Region Seven, Lethem in Region Nine, Mabaruma, in Region One and Mahdia in Region Eight, as communities that will be prepared for township status within the next year.
Before and during the recent elections campaign, President David Granger had promised the development of the communities into townships.
Bulkan was reported recently by the Government Information Agency (GINA) as saying the new towns would each have its own mayor and councillors. The towns would also be providing all the services that other municipalities offer, including governmental services such as provision of passports and driver’s licences, thereby offering relief to residents who now have to travel to Georgetown to access such services, he further said. The GINA report added that Bulkan expects that the four new towns would be operational by the time Guyana observes its 50th independence anniversary on May 26th, 2016.
Questioned yesterday as to why Parika was not being considered for township status given that it has more of the attributes of a town compared to some of the communities identified, Bulkan said that those identified are administrative centres of hinterland regions and that is the reason why they will be made towns. He said that the ministry will work with them to build capacity to manage and develop the centres.
Charity, Supenaam, Parika and Bartica were identified for township status by the PPP/C administration. Bulkan said that there is no immediate priority to make Parika a town. “It is not a priority, it may happen,” he said.
He noted that those areas have Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDC) and they are not functional and it would require a change in the mindset from the NDCs and action from the central government, but the priority is to deal first with the administrative centres of the hinterland areas.
Currently, there are six towns: Georgetown, the capital, in Region Four; New Amsterdam, Corriverton and Rose Hall in Region Six; Anna Regina in Region Two; and Linden in Region Ten.
Plans to increase the number of Guyanese towns had been on the previous government’s agenda for a number of years.
On February 8, 2006, the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and the Guyana government signed a contract amounting to US$16.1 million to have the four communities of Bartica, Charity, Parika and Supenaam converted to towns as part of the Community Services Enhance-ment Project (CSEP). At the signing ceremony, it was disclosed that the CDB had provided a sum of US$200,000 as a grant for the project, while the balance was in the form of a loan. The timeline given for the completion of this project was 3 years.
The signing of the agreement was intended to allow for the provision of technical assistance for services provided in the targeted communities, particularly the infrastructure and the Regional Democratic Councils (RDCs), with the intention that this would lead to their eventual elevation to towns. Since then various projects have been done on developing infrastructure in the regions, including repairing roads in the communities, improving administrative buildings and constructing new markets.
Resources were also allocated for designing programmes to address issues such as solid waste management, community awareness and participation, strengthening urban management and a town transition plan to enhance financial and infrastructural management.
In January 2007, a contract to the tune of $29 million was inked with the Jamaican company Trevor Hamilton Associates for it to engage in work to bring institutional strengthening to the four identified communities.
The main thrust of the four-month consultancy was to identify and clarify the roles and responsibilities of the various stakeholders in achieving the shared goal of attaining town status. Additionally, it was intended to provide a comprehensive framework for the transitioning of the four communities and to specify the timing and scheduling of the major activities, including the recruitment and training of staff, system adaptation and installation, communications and education.
