Minister of Local Government and Regional Development Nigel Dharamlall on Friday announced that the delayed local government elections will be held this year.
“We believe in democracy. We believe in people’s choices. We believe that for our country to continue to evolve, for development to come flowingly to our people, that we must have local government elections. We are going to have local government elections this year. We have budgeted billions of dollars for local government elections and we are going to have local government [elections] this year,” Dharamlall told the National Assembly on Friday during his contribution to the budget debate.
He pointed out that in excess of $4.1 billion has been budgeted for the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), which is responsible for conducting the polls. In the 2021 budget, the government had allocated $1.1 billion for the holding of the polls, including some $237.7 million for the printing of 500,000 ballots and other materials, $285.7 million for voter education and other programmes, $135.7 million for the training of elections day staff, $81.6 million for rental of buildings to conduct the elections and $75.6 million for meals.
The polls were due last year but were not held due to GECOM being not in a state of readiness owing to key vacancies, including that of Chief Election Officer. That vacancy has since been filled.
Opposition-nominated GECOM commissioner Vincent Alexander told Stabroek News on Wednesday that Chief Election Officer Vishnu Persaud has reported that he was working on a plan for the holding of the elections.
However, during his presentation Dharamlall accused the APNU+AFC Commissioners of seeking to stymie the conduct of the polls this year. He opined that the opposition seemingly does not want the elections to be held this year “because they are not sure if they are going to contest as APNU, APNU+AFC, or PNC.”
“You are in a quandary. The PNC is in a quandary right now, so now they are threatening the conduct of local government elections,” he told the House before opining that once the polls are held the present opposition will “lose more” constituencies.
The opposition commissioners have, among other things, recently urged the cleansing of the voters` list, while saying that it has been a persistent demand of major stakeholders and should be addressed.
Meanwhile, during his presentation Dharamlall also underscored that every single village in Guyana will benefit from an intervention via the proposed national budget.
“We have over $71 billion that we have to spend in our villages. We have to clean up our country… Every single area of our country we are cleaning and we are going to put more money to transform this country”, he stated.
He specified, that $ 5 billion will go towards community infrastructure and $714 million would go towards providing greater support to the local democratic organs countrywide.
Additionally, Dharamlall noted that an additional $400 million will be channeled towards the restoration of the City Hall, as according to him last year President Irfaan Ali decided that monies would be placed in the budget for City Hall.
Furthermore, according to the minister, over the last 18 months within his sector 7,000 persons were employed “and this year we are going to employ more people.” In particular, he stated that investments will be made in Region Two to create employment, while investments within the agriculture, public works, and housing sectors will also create jobs for the citizens of Guyana.
“More money is going to be spent, more people are going to make money, there will be more money in the pockets of poor people in this country,” he stressed.
