Chairman of the National Task Force Commission (NTFC) for the Rehabilitation, Restoration and Renewal of Guyana Major General (rtd) Joseph Singh says that as the body gets more traction, the nation can expect to see policy recommendations implemented through respective ministries, especially in social protection.
“I expect that in the latter part of this year that we will have greater traction,” Singh said on Thursday, while speaking at a press conference where he gave an update on the works done to date and future plans.
The Task Force was set up by Cabinet to aid with the transformation of Guyana under the new government. Its mandate primarily centres on drainage, solid waste management and derelict vehicle removal, traffic management, sustainable urban physical infrastructure renewal, and welfare management of the homeless and addicted.
The latter focus, Singh said, was facing more challenges than the others but that plans are on stream to tackle the issue collectively.
“You know in Georgetown there is the Night Shelter and there is also the Hugo Chavez centre at Onverwagt in Berbice. These have to be prepared and staffed to accommodate those persons who are categorised in one of these three areas—homeless mentally challenged and the addicted,” he pointed out.
The multimillion-dollar Hugo Chavez Centre for Rehabilitation and Reintegration, which was built to house almost 200 persons, remains grossly underused, while the homeless continue to roam the streets. Only about 25 persons are reported to be resident at the centre and many of the homeless in Georgetown are unaware of its existence.
Singh pointed to specialist private agencies that have been assisting the social sector in this regard and explained that the Guyana Foundation and other organisations have been commissioning studies and buildings designed to assist in counselling and providing technical advice. “They are working to fill the gap until the Ministry of Social Protection is able to take up its responsibility,” he said.
Singh has told Stabroek News that the NTFC’s life is expected to last until 2020. And he also noted that at that point in time, “Once the structures are established then there ought not to be a need for a National Task Force Commission because, by definition, the work to address these areas of concern would be efficiently executed, one would hope, by those agencies that are tasked with that responsibility.”
But until that time, he stressed that their role would be to assist. “We are not replacing the established agencies and we don’t have a separate budget because we are not an executing agency, we are a facilitating mechanism. The people who do the physical work are those who are tasked with that as a routine national responsibility. So we have, in a sense, an oversight responsibility as well as a facilitating the responsibility to complement the work of the existing agencies. Whatever budget we have is disbursed through the Ministry of Public Infrastructure and the NTFC reports through the Minister responsible for Public Infrastructure David Patterson, to the cabinet,” he explained.
Singh said that over the last year Patterson has been very supportive of the works of the commission and he lauded him for that.
He also remains optimistic that even as the commission prepares its inputs for the various sectors for the 2017 budget, these measures will be implemented.
“You know that preparations for the budget next year are already in train. We are working with the various sectors…so that things which are affecting the lives of citizens, like safety, the effective movement of traffic, welfare aspects, dealing with the homeless etcetera …that these aspects, as far as possible, are reflected in the budget for next year. Hopefully, if the budget is approved, then many of those projects that were delayed or had to be put on the back burner will come to surface,” he said.
