Stressing the importance of the East Berbice-Corentyne region, President David Granger yesterday appealed to residents to give the APNU+AFC coalition a chance to lead them to development, while saying that the PPP/C’s time at the helm has left it in a mess.
“This region is too important to lose. This region is too important to put in the hands of the PPP/Civic. The APNU+AFC deserves to control Region Six, to deliver a good quality of life to the residents of this region,” Granger said last evening at the Esplanade Ground in New Amsterdam, which hosted the coalition’s first rally in Region Six.
Granger used his address to stress the need for an end to the PPP/C’s control of the regional council at the upcoming March 2nd general and regional polls. “This region is too important to Guyana, is too important to the Caribbean, is too important for your children to put it back in the hands of the same people who made a mess of it,” he said, before urging that they use the opportunity to “chase the PPP/C RDC out of the region.”
“We have to bring the PPP control of Region Six to an end,” he said. “We have to chase the PPP out, chase them out, chase them out don’t let them come back. God bless you all but chase them out first,” he declared at the end of his speech.
Almost every one of his sentences was cheered by the energetic crowd at the venue,
which was packed to capacity with APNU+AFC supporters, including many who had been brought in buses from all across the country. A number of minibuses from various zones were parked outside of the ground.
Seeking to make his case for an APNU+AFC-led region, Granger said that for the country to work, the Regional Demo-cratic Councils (RDCs) must cooperate with the Neighbourhood Democra-tic Councils (NDCs) and central government. “We can’t have a civil war in which the RDCs fighting the central government and fighting down the neighbourhoods. We have to work together and let me tell you this it ain’t working out under the PPP. We have to control RDC, NDC, municipality and just in the same way we will control central government,” he argued. “We have to break the PPP stranglehold on East Berbice-Corentyne. We have to set this region free,” he added.
Granger noted that at every elections, there has been a decrease of votes for the PPP/C in Region Six. “Is flush they getting flush out, you know,” he said, while asserting that the PPP/C was in serious trouble. “We know they are weak. We know they are losing support,” he said, while urging supporters against taking the region for granted.
He said that in 2015, only 68% of the region’s 91, 000 eligible voters cast their ballots. “In other words, about 28,000 people didn’t vote in this region. People who qualified to vote didn’t vote.”
According to him, the APNU+AFC lost Region Six by 17,000 votes and he opined that if some of the persons who did not vote had turned out then his party would have won the region hands down. “The PPP is in decline. They are weak and we have to take advantage of this moment. We have to control East Berbice/Corentyne,” he said, before urging “massive mobilisation.”
Plans
With thousands of layoffs in the region due to the shuttering of the Rose Hall and Skeldon sugar estates as part of a move to downsize GuySuCo to make it more efficient, Granger also sought to defend his government’s handling of the sugar industry.
He charged that the PPP/C left the sugar industry in a huge mess, which is what he said he found at Albion, before adding that the Skeldon Factory is now a museum in the hemisphere.
He then sought to remind the gathering that the PPP/C had also closed the Diamond estate, leav-ing hundreds of persons jobless.
He maintained that his government is restructur-ing the sugar industry to ensure it becomes profitable. “That’s why we did not shut down East Berbice-Corentyne. The East Berbice estates are still viable. The West Ber-bice estates are still viable. The West Demerara estates are still viable. We will make the sugar industry work,” he said.
He continued, “We need your sugar, we need your rice, we need your fish from this region. We want to support a vibrant economy in East Berbice-Corentyne.”
Granger attacked the PPP/C’s record, while charging that it never had a plan to develop Region Six, which he contrasted against the coalition’s planned decade of development. “We have a plan for New Amsterdam to make New Amsterdam an engine of growth for this region,” he said, while noting that they planned to ensure that every child in the region attends school and accesses the University of Guyana’s Tain Campus, and a plan to modernise the region’s waterfronts and make New Amsterdam a busy commercial hub with a deepwater port. He said, his party has a plan to develop industrial parks and make New Amsterdam a manufacturing centre. He also said there was a plan to suppress crime.
He claimed that it was the first time citizens were seeing mounted police in Black Bush Polder patrolling day and night. He then noted that there is a commission of inquiry into pirate attacks because his government wants to abolish piracy in East Berbice-Corentyne.
“We have achieved much in our nearly five years in government. You’ve seen the transformation in New Amsterdam and the East Berbice-Corentyne. Elections are not about race, elections are about service to the people and we serve the people regardless of their race, regardless of their religion…That is why we have improved medical facilities for everyone in this region,” he said.
He also argued that the PPP/C tolerated a huge squatter settlement which the current government is now regularising “and you will see the transformation. We are now giving out titles [so] that Angoy’s Avenue will disappear as a squatter settlement and will be a place of decent housing for people of New Amsterdam.”
‘One of me’
Granger also said that while he was criticised by the PPP/C for being a retired Brigadier, the PPP/C then selected a retired Brigadier for its prime ministerial candidate. “But is only one of me,” he quipped.
He also took swipes at PPP General Secretary and former president Bharrat Jagdeo, alluding to him as having two problems: “One problem is that he want to get his hand on the oil money and the second problem is that he riding a donkey in a race that is for thoroughbreds.”
He also responded to a Jagdeo claim that he [Granger] goes to sleep at 8 pm. “Listen [to] me good: It only got one person in this whole world that know when I go to sleep and is na he,” he told the crowd which then erupted into cheers.
He said he was criticised for praying but noted that he saw nothing wrong with that since the country is a religious one. “Next time you see that man ask him who he does pray to,” he added.
Granger, 74, responded further to criticisms of his age, saying he brings experience to his position as he would never “buy a wreck like that Skeldon Estate. I would never preside over 10 years of trouble when 1,431 young people got killed in this country. I care for human life, I care for human beings. I care for Guyanese.”
Noting that he also cares for children, Granger said, “You have to have children to care for children.”
He also said that he is the only president to have appointed ten ministers who are younger than him and are all women. “Unlike some people I know, I love and respect women,” he added.
