President David Granger last evening promised Berbicians that if the APNU+AFC coalition is reelected to govern Guyana, he will work to ensure that Region Six is rebuilt as an agricultural powerhouse.
Speaking at the APNU+AFC rally at the Area H Ground, Coren-tyne, about assisting farmers through the Regional Agricultural Infrastructural Develop-ment Programme, which has been extended, he said, “We will help farmers with their tools and equipment. We will help farmers with drainage and irrigation and we will ensure that Region Six is rebuilt as an agriculture powerhouse not for a few rich people but for all of the residents of this region and people will stop running away from this region.”
Granger’s administra-tion has taken flak for the laying off of thousands of sugar workers in Region Six without providing them with alternative employment or aid for them and their families. Granger’s Agriculture Ministry has also been pilloried for not producing results in the sector.
According to the president, through a state lands commission, they will work to ensure that former sugar workers, who have not yet gained employment, would benefit from leased lands. “Cabinet has already approved to set up a state lands commission and some of the lands which cannot be productively used for sugar industry will be leased out to workers who want to become farmers and to continue to have a good life in this region,” he said.
Granger told the gathering that he is aware that some citizens are worried about “what happen in the sugar industry.” However, he said, he had personally visited the Albion sugar factory and knows “the pain the sugar workers feel but the sugar industry that the PPP handed us could not be sustained.”
According to him, the sugar industry was in difficulties and even when the APNU+AFC was in opposition, they “were helping to bail out the sugar industry.” However, he said, the “monument at Skeldon” had to be scrapped since it could not be bailed out.
He sought to explain that his government tried to save the sugar industry in East Berbice/Corentyne and said that “the East Berbice/Corentyne sugar industry based at Albion will be preserved and protected by the APNU+AFC adminis-tration.”
Dubbing his govern-ment a caring administration, the president said that they will extend care to the disadvantaged and poor people in Region Six. He spoke again about abolishing squatting by setting up a state commission to examine all 150 squatting settlements in Guyana and providing proper housing for citizens.
He said a nation of dignified people and educated children cannot be built “if they are living in poor conditions.”
“It has already started. The Ministry of Communities has already started the programme for regularisation of squatter settlements and East Berbice/Corentyne, Region Six, is going see those squatter settlements disappear and our children will grow up in decent homes and decent communities,” he said.
Mount Sinai, which he called the “biggest and worst” of the 25 squatter settlements in the region, will become a place of decent habitation, Granger promised.
Meanwhile, he re-minded the gathering that the region has benefited from its share of buses, boats and bicycles to attend school, as he noted that they will continue to work to ensure that no child has to pay to attend school. “… And when we start to get revenue from the petroleum industry, not now, not this year but when the revenue starts to flow, we are going to provide cash grants to families who can provide evidence that their children are in school.”
He stressed that “the profits are not going to go into the pockets of a few rich men and women. They are going to go into the homes of poor people, needy people to get their children to school.”
The president also told supporters that an APNU+AFC victory is achievable. “The PPP is beatable and an APNU+AFC victory is achievable, do you believe that? We have to break the PPP stranglehold on Region Six; this is no longer the PPP stronghold,” he said.
Telling supporters that it is important for the APNU+AFC to win a majority of seats not only at the national level but also at the regional level, Granger said that the coalition is getting stronger with each rally in every region. “This is a winnable election but we have to strategise, we have to mobilise, we have to organise ourselves. Ask yourselves, can you win this region? Will you win this region? Well, let us go out on the 2nd of March and win Region Six with the good people of East Berbice/Corentyne. Can you do it? Can you do it? Well let’s go out there and do it,” he urged.
Running away
“We have to take sober look at what’s happening in this country, what’s happening in this region if we are to change things for the better for our children over the next ten years,” he added.
He said there cannot be a government that is resisted at all levels by the opposition, claiming that the region’s democratic council has been resisting central government and not supporting all villages. “We’ve got an RDC which is fighting against central government, which is delaying development, I can tell you that. People don’t turn up to meetings when the Minister of Communities call. We only have one government in this country and that is the government of the APNU+AFC coalition,” he told the cheering crowd.
He said that the region cannot have an RDC which does not bring development to all citizens. “I am president of all Guyana. I cannot discriminate, and the RDC must be the RDC for the whole region,” he emphasised.
The PPP in charge of Region Six is not providing leadership and stewardship to the people and communities of the region, Granger said. He added that they are not building partnerships. “We have to change that and we will change it on the second of March,” he said.
According to the president, citizens are “running away” from Region Six even though it is a PPP/C led region. Giving statistics of the regional population decreasing over the years, Granger said, “People are running away from Region Six under the PPP. Why are they running away if this PPP is so good for Region Six? They are running away because the RDC is not running Region Six properly and we have to change that.”
According to Granger, under PPP General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo, the PPP/C’s score in Region Six is declining and will decline further at the upcoming polls because the PPP is unable and unwilling to run the region fairly “and it cannot perform the task of developing this great and powerful region.”
Noting that Region Six has the potential to be the food source for the entire country, he said the region can produce more rice, sugar, fruits, vegetables and fish “but it is because of bad leadership that there is poor people in this region.”
“It can provide a better life for all of you, for all of us but because of poor leadership people in this region are suffering,” he stressed.
“The PPP is part of the past, it believes in confrontation. The APNU believe in cooperation. The PPP believes in winner takes all, the APNU believes in collaboration and coalition,” Granger added.
“The APNU+AFC coalition is what is bringing about change even in the face of confrontation by the regional administration,” he said.
Meanwhile, according to the president, there is a plan of action for every region but some regions are resisting based on instruction from the PPP “because it gon make the APNU+AFC look good.”
However, he pointed out that when the plan of action is not implemented then citizens suffer within the regions.
A seemingly confident Granger said that after March, 2, the plan of action, which will strengthen infrastructure, commerce, industrial development, and agriculture production, will be implemented.
