People’s National Con-gress (PNC) Chairwoman and Minister of Public Health Volda Lawrence promised residents of D’Urban Backlands to rectify issues including the lack of birth certificates, a deplorable road and absence of street lights during one of her party’s outreaches yesterday afternoon.
The meeting was held at the Burnham Annex, which is located north east of D’Urban Backlands, and saw more than 50 residents in attendance. Also present were Georgetown Mayor Ubraj Narine, Deputy Mayor Alfred Mentore and PNC member James Bond.
Speaking to Stabroek News, Lawrence said that they want to ensure that the residents are documented and not just living there unrepresented.
“People just living here and people believe they are squatters but you come behind here and you have nurses living, policemen, teachers, children who go to Bishops’ [High School] and Saints living behind here and so on. So we want to ensure that the community can develop in such a way that they are not on top of each other and that there are good environmental practices here. We want to ensure that (the) city council knows about these people and recognise them to ensure that services can be extended here,” Lawrence explained.
She said that a meeting was first convened in the area last week and residents pointed out that most of them have no birth certificates and they are also plagued by several social issues.
“When I came, they brought it up the last time, that the issue was that you have a lot of persons here who said that they applied for birth certificates and always come back saying that something wrong, some info is not right and so on,” she explained.
As a result, Dawn Britton, who is from the Ministry of Citizenship’s General Registrar’s Office, told the gathering that the party would be facilitating the procedure to ensure that residents can become registered and be able to obtain their birth certificates.
“We want to assist you people in getting your birth certificate so you can have a national identification card, a passport and all the facilities available here in Guyana. We are going to arrange a date that we are going to be back in this area. Those persons who have never been registered or who do not have a receipt of a birth certificate, we will be doing late registration for you,” she said.
Britton explained that while the birth certificates carry a cost of $300, they will not have to pay for an affidavit and after completing the process, they will be able to receive their certificates within a week.
Lawrence was questioned as to whether the presence of a representative of a government ministry at a political gathering was appropriate, to which she responded, “Who is going to represent them?
“They are citizens of Guyana and anywhere I go and I find issues, I try to bring the Minister or whoever responsible for that issue so that the people can get solutions. Too many times, we have people speaking to issues to which they do not have a mandate to help the people. So it’s like me being here to talk about housing. I can’t help them with housing so I would go to speak with the Minister to send her team here,” Lawrence explained.
She said that they have discovered that the area is plagued with issues such as teenage pregnancy, domestic abuse, and infrastructural woes including no access to potable water.
Lawrence also pointed out that a preliminary examination last week has spurred the idea of having an adolescent health programme.
“The Ministry of Social Protection was called in and they did an assessment. The residents also spoke about security and I met some taxi men last week who said they only come up to a certain point and begged us to put in [street] lights,” she said, while noting that they have also complained about the deplorable state of the road.
As a result, she noted that she has already spoken to the respective subject Ministers to address specific issues.
In relation to the birth certificates issue, the residents related that March 2nd is the most reasonable date for them to meet and complete the process.
