There has been a noticeable and positive shift in the mindset and thinking of unemployed persons this year as compared to since the coalition APNU+AFC took office in 2015, Minister of State Joseph Harmon said, referencing data he personally gathered through outreaches during the timeframe stated.
“I find that there is a… degree of self-reliance as many of the persons who came today and although unemployed were not [saying] ‘I want a job here or there’ but they wanted advice on how to develop themselves,”
Harmon said when Stabroek News caught up with him at the ending of the PNC’s ministerial outreach at Congress Place, Sophia.
Friday was his turn to meet the public as part of a People’s National Congress Reform (PNC-R) outreach programme which runs separate from its party coalition with the Alliance for Change.
At the conclusion of the exercise, Harmon informed that he had met over 50 persons and that when he compared the exercise to similar ones he has held across the country since last year, the call for personal development by persons could not be ignored.
“The important feature, to my mind, was that we were seeing not people coming saying ‘a looking for a job’ but people who are saying, ‘look I have prepared myself and how I can develop myself to do this or that and provide services needed.’ I have to tell you that I have found now, a greater degree of self-reliance even though most of them were unemployed. That was a key notable difference between last year and this year,” the Minister of State revealed.
Believing that Friday’s heavy rainfall coupled with the fact that it was the day after the Mashramani holiday would cause persons to stay away, Harmon said that he was in for a surprise as from the time the meetings started at 10 am persons were already waiting. For this, he is grateful and is encouraging the citizenry to maximize on similar outreaches planned, to share with government not only their complaints but ideas and suggestions for the development of a better Guyana.
Turning to a dossier of papers he had filed from the individuals he met, the Minister of State related the myriad issues that were shared. “Some of them had to do with housing … and land…. Some people complained about the problems they had at the National Insurance Scheme, others promotions and the Guyana Prison Service and others the Guyana Police Force. We had some issues about the GPHC [Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation] and its security and investigations that people believed ought to be done at GPHC…so you see it was not any one issue,” he stated.
Making an impression on the Minister of State was a group that he met last year from Bagotsville on the West Bank Demerara who had indicated that they were construction workers. “There were some small contractors that came that wanted to know how they could get a better chance for contracts that are awarded by government… I had met some of them last year and told them to put themselves in order. When they returned now they told us they had formed a group and had I think over 30 members. They wanted advice and were prepared to work and are looking at getting equipment and that sort of thing,” Harmon noted.
“I have advised them you know that when you get a contract you don’t spend out all the money. You put up a percentage…so you can develop your company, you can purchase equipment, machinery, build and develop that company etcetera,” he added.
And the minister said that his record keeping would not fail those he had seen as it was logged by his department and where referral letters were given, deadlines were set to follow up with both the departments referred to and the persons met.
“Some of the meetings required actions to be taken and we gave referral letters basically saying ‘I met this person at the outreach…’. I have given each and every one of them a date, a deadline, when something is going to happen. In any case we would not have gone beyond two weeks as to a time when something would happen,” he informed.
