Dear Editor,
The PPP/C did provide significant support for the people of Linden during our 1992-2015 tenure in Government.
When the PPP/C was elected to Office in October 1992, the Government met a situation of high structural unemployment in Linden occasioned primarily by reduced demand for Guyana’s bauxite on the World Market and the resultant depressed price for the bauxite most of which was produced in Linden. In addition, the social sector was run down; infrastructure was almost non-existent and high unemployment rates were the order of the day not only in Linden but the rest of Guyana. Be reminded that it was the PNC/PNCR Government that presided over the poor state of our country.
The PPP/C Government took Office and it was not long before the Government began to unfold its measures to address the socioeconomic and other challenges which were very much evident.
- a) The PPP/C Government pumped huge subsidies into the Bauxite Industry to safeguard jobs of persons who were for the most part, not supporters of the PPP/C Government or the PPP and, may I remind, at a time when the State-owned Bauxite Company was in the doldrums. The PNC had brought in the Australian Group called MinProc to close the Industry but the PPP/C kept it alive to keep the jobs of the people; most of whom hailed from Linden, Kwakwani and Ituni. In fact, the PPP/C did invest so much in Linden over the next 22 years plus that we were accused of pampering Linden. How does that compare with the way the APNU+AFC Government today reacts to the challenges faced by the mostly PPP/C rice farmers and sugar workers; public servants, teachers, nurses?
- b) The PPP/C investment in Linden has been viewed by many as too costly and a possible cause of some loss of loyal constituents; moreso in Regions where there are poorer and more depressed Guyanese. We have faced criticisms of overly subsidizing Linden electricity tariffs as against other areas where the cost was multiple times higher. The records would show that Lindeners have been paying cheap electricity rates since the 1970s. Consequently, the question was being asked and still is asked by many: Why should Lindeners pay $12 to $15 per kilowatt hour while the rest of the grid at the lowest level in the commercial category pays
$60 +? and while many in the Hinterland Villages and Communities can’t even get their promised Solar Electricity panels. Lindeners should have been incorporated into the National Grid since in the 1980s.
- c) Many of us cannot do as Lindeners do … press our clothes with electric iron; warm our food in microwave; keep our lights on day and night; play music and watch TV and enjoy air conditioning in our homes. The electricity costs are very high and unaffordable. Yet we read and hear comments which suggest that the PPP/C whilst in Government discriminated against the people of Region 10 because of the ethnicity of a majority of its people and their perceived political loyalty to the APNU+AFC Government. Those who have eyes to see let them see: that many in Linden are not poor.
- d) No honest, decent Guyanese would deny the noticeable evidence of development/improvement in the extent, quality and access to quality education and health care in Region 10 and more specifically Linden under the PPP/C Government. And among the ten Administrative Regions, Region 10 per capita of population stands out with noticeably high achievement in the Education and Health sectors. Linden has been part of the achievement of Universal Primary Education and the reduction of child mortality and improvement in maternal health as set out in the Millennium Development Goals. It all happened under the PPP/C.
Additionally, there is noticeable infrastructural expansion in the areas of maintenance and rehabilitation of roads, bridges, drains, water. Coming out of its Company Town history also, electricity prices paid by consumers have been 10% and less than what ought to be paid. So much so that the PPP/C Government subsidy in 2007 was $1.8B and $2.4B in 2012 or $17, 000 per household per month in Linden and Kwakwani. This is quite apart from the cost of fuel for Ituni paid for vide the RDC. It was $24.14M in 2012.
- e) The Linden Hospital Complex, Region 10, is one of the many facilities implemented by the PPP/C administration to ensure that Lindeners had access to proper health care, among other facilities.
Other Social Reform Programmes designed to create jobs for the citizens and hence raise their living standards were developed and extended to include Region 10 during the PPP/C term in Office, viz the Women of Worth (WOW) Programme; the Linden Economic Advancement Programme (LEAP) from which hundreds of loans were advanced to those who successfully applied.
I think it would be accurate to say that many Lindeners did not take advantage of the opportunities offered under the programmes and plans developed and the opportunities created under the PPP/C Government. Many Lindeners began to behave as if we owed them something; as if we were duty bound to serve them on a platter whatever they asked for.
I am not suggesting that we reduce material assistance for Linden but I emphasize that there must be fairness and equity when it comes to the distribution of the Nation’s wealth/resources. This wealth is for all Guyanese irrespective of their ethnicity or political affiliation. In this regard Region 10 is no more important than any of the other nine Administrative Regions. On a per capita basis, Lindeners have received more assistance from the PPP/C Government than most other communities.
The PPP/C Government did provide resources for similar development in the Amerindian Villages and Communities situated mostly in the Upper Demerara and Upper Berbice Riverain areas; the Kwakwani NDC, the Linden Municipality and the over 30 Community Development Councils elected by the people of the communities they represented. Assistance to these Local Authorities was provided primarily through the instrument of the National and Regional Budgets in the form of Subventions and grants to the extent of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Thousands in Region 10 now own their own homes. The National Drainage and Irrigation Authority was responsible for clearing of drains across Region 10 from 2010 to 2015. More farming and residential communities were maintained and the number of Groups increased from 21 to 36. The main economic activities switched, due to the decline of the bauxite industry, to forestry, mining, quarrying and farming.
There is definitely noticeable evidence of improvement. Maybe not as much as the people of Linden would have wished but the truth is that the PPP/C recognized that there were poor people across Guyana and not just Linden or Region 10.
Yours faithfully,
Norman Whittaker
Former Minister of Local
Government and
Regional Development.
