Noting that he is the APNU+AFC campaign director, President David Granger who is undergoing treatment for cancer yesterday signalled his intention to be on the campaign trail in the next general elections.
He addressed questions about whether he would be campaigning given his health situation shortly after accrediting the Filipino Ambassador to Guyana at the Ministry of the Presidency.
“I am no stranger to campaigning,” he told reporters, while reminding that he was on the campaign trail in October last year for the local government elections when the disease “prevented me from going further.” He reminded that up to that point, he had actually campaigned in Rose Hall, Corriverton, Anna Regina and Lethem and Mahdia. “So I was very active until it became impossible for me to go on so,” he said.
Granger noted that on February 1 this year the APNU+AFC established a campaign committee. “I am the campaign director. We will be campaigning and we expect to remain in office unbroken,” he stressed.
On January 15 this year, Granger went to Cuba for the fourth round of chemotherapy.
On December 4th, 2018, the Ministry of the Presidency said that the President’s regimen of chemo-therapy will go all the way up to May this year. He is being treated at the Centro de Investigaciones Médico Quirúrgicas.
President Granger and First Lady Sandra Granger had journeyed to Cuba on October 30, 2018 for the President’s medical investigation. After an intensive series of tests by specialist doctors, he was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. The President and his wife returned to Guyana from Cuba on November 20, 2018 after a number of medical interventions including the first round of chemotherapy treatment were performed.
In March it was announced that he had successfully completed the chemotherapy and would start radiotherapy the following month.
Meanwhile, Granger said that the government has encountered some challenges during its four years in office. “I would not pretend that in every instance they have been successfully overcome. We have inherited some difficult situations,” he said before singling out the ailing sugar industry.
He said that the industry was already in a state of decline when government entered office. “As you know the previous administration shut down Diamond (Estate). We were amalgamating other estates. When they went into office there was about twenty thousand employees and by the time they demitted office they were down to about fifteen thousand, so the previous administration knew that the industry was in decline and that is one of the biggest challenges we have faced,” he stressed.
He noted that there are other areas in which there have been successes in terms of local government. “We held local government elections twice in three years. We created four new towns and we are committed to democratic governance. We have tried to improve the infrastructure in many of the rural areas and also some riverine communities, he said.
Further, he identified the 5Bs transportation service for school children as another success story.
“I don’t want to give a catalogue here but I know there have been challenges and we would like to complete our term, depending on what GECOM tells us, we would like to complete our term and deliver to Guyanese, the good life we promised them,” he added.
