To Region 10 where especially youth unemployment continues to be of concern, President David Granger last evening promised to not only bring a swift solution should he be re-elected at the March 2nd General and Regional Elections, but also empower youths across the country with entrepreneurial and technical skillsets among others.
“Not lime at street corner, we will ensure they receive employment. We will provide employment opportunities for young people,” the President yesterday told an APNU+AFC rally, held at the Bayroc Community Centre Ground.
And as he hinted that the scent of marijuana as he made his way to the location made him “feel so high I nearly touch the sky”, he said that instead of smoking, persons would be empowered to own successful businesses from local produce given the “boundless agricultural potential”. They will also be given necessary skillsets training to realize their potential, regardless of their careers of choice. “Not only smoking certain agricultural pursuits but making agricultural beverages,” he said.
The APNU+AFC government has been criticised for not delivering on its 2015 pledge to create jobs for youths. Three weeks before the elections it is still to present its manifesto.
The Burnham Education Trust, he told attendees, is an example of his commitment of not only listening to youth but building on their ideas. “We have a powerful force in the coalition to support young people,” Granger said.
“Students believe in us because we guarantee universal primary education, universal secondary education and we will guarantee universal university education to those who are qualified, once the oil money starts to flow. We have plans,” he added.
The Linden Enterprise Network (LEN), he said, would be extended to all the towns in the country as he boasted that some $155M via about 570 loans has been disbursed. Bartica and Mabaruma are next in line to start their own LEN …programme. “You have a model that we will extend countrywide so that young people in every town will get the opportunity to have a hands up…our coalition cares about you…we are concerned about young people,” the President said.
He pointed to deceased President Forbes Burnham’s National Service programme.
“In 1968 he set up the Guyana youth corps. He thought he would build on the youth corps and made the National Service. The PPP destroyed the National Service and many of our young people were left without jobs, without skills, without training,” he asserted.
Observers have noted that the Guyana National Service had begun to fall apart long before the PPP/C entered office in 1992.
It is from that time, according to Granger, that this country’s unemployment rate began to rise. “Well I build back the youth corps, let them come and bruk it up. What they bruk up I build back. That is what real leaders do. They build. Where others break we build. We now have a Guyana Youth Corps at Kuru Kuru and every year that youth corps will train 1000 youths to be employed. That is what I am doing for young people. We saw the plight of young people created by … the PPP/C. So we set up the SLED (Sustainable Livelihood and Entrepreneur Development) – we put money into SLED and I am proud that SLED is helping young people to start up businesses and to get jobs. We have already helped 2500 young people,” he added while urging youths to apply themselves for “not L.O.A.N but G.R.A.N.T.”
And girls from the New Opportunity Corps Juvenile Centre he said, have been given the tools needed to start afresh with many boasting of the turnaround and rehabilitative steps.
“I have removed all of the women from NOC. Women belong at school or at home or at work they don’t belong at the NOC… This girl stood up and said I come from NOC but tonight I am a businesswoman. That is what the coalition is doing for young men and women in this country,” he said to loud applause.
Granger said that Guyanese must ask themselves if having gone through the 23 years of the PPP/C, they wish to return to the days of the “phantom squad, another Pradoville, fibre optic cable or Skeldon”. When screams of ‘no!’ bellowed from the crowd he added, “If yuh nah want these things nah bring am back.”
Under his government, he said, young people will be equipped to go into manufacturing and it will help these micro enterprises so that they are also able to market and export the goods they produce.
The infrastructure to make the development possible, he promised, will come from the revenue derived from the oil and gas sector.
“I am a dreamer but my dreams are prophecies which turn into realities. One day before I die you can drive in a car from Kwakwani across the Berbice River, come down to cross the Demerara River and the Essequibo …all the way to Karasabai. All over this country, we will use the petroleum resources for you, and we will develop this country to give you a better way of life,” the President said.
“We will improve the infrastructure but we must also improve the quality of life so that the people have a model life. We want a country in which there is equality regardless of race, religion… I believe in equality. My cabinet is the first in history to have 10 women…I believe in equality I don’t discriminate. The APNU+AFC don’t discriminate,” he added.
