Thandeka Percival

For a little more than an hour yesterday, the streets outside the Mackenzie Market rang with the voices of dozens of Linden residents who turned out to support a march against homosexuality.

Today at 2 pm the 30 councillors of the Georgetown City Council will once again cast a vote on the future of metered parking in the city and several of them have told Stabroek News that they want to be sure their vote accurately represents a mandate from residents.

After finding that concessionaire Smart City Solutions (SCS) vastly inflated estimates of its capital investment in the Georgetown metered parking project, the Mayor and City Council’s Negotiating Committee has warned against proceeding with the venture without a renegotiation of the contract.

Chairman of the Guyana National Broadcasting Authority (GNBA) Leslie Sobers yesterday said that broadcasters who fear revocation of licences should be more concerned about the content they air than with the provisions of the recently passed amendments to the broadcast legislation.

Just after 5 pm yesterday, Professor Ivelaw Griffith took his seat as the Tenth Vice-Chancellor (VC) of the University of Guyana (UG) to the tune of trumpet fanfare.

The National Assembly last night passed the landmark Tobacco Control Bill 2017 which will target smoking in indoor public places and ban advertising of tobacco products.

Despite the lessons that should have been learned from last year’s deadly fire at the Camp Street prison, witnesses say both the Guyana Fire Service and Guyana Water Inc (GWI) were not prepared for the fire that devastated the jail on Sunday.

There was a sharp rise in the Mathematics performance at this year’s National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) and improvements in the three other subject areas, according to the results released yesterday, but more than 50% of the 13,329 pupils who wrote the exams were still unable to pass three of the four subjects taken.

A proposal by the Ministry of Education (MoE) to limit the number of subjects students can sit at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examination may have found favour with the Guyana Teachers Union but former Minister of Education Priya Manickchand says that it is ill thought out and dumb.

By Thandeka Percival and Dreylan Johnson There is unlikely to be any change this year to the 14% Value Added Tax (VAT) being applied on private school tuition fees, according to Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo, who made the position clear yesterday when government ministers engaged stakeholders in a discussion on the measure at the National Cultural Centre.

  From April 1, 2017, former PNC Prime Minister Hamilton Green is expected to start receiving almost $1.5 million a month in pension payments and other benefits after the government used its parliamentary majority last evening to pass a controversial bill to confer him with the package.

Racked by weeks of boycotts, protests and court action aimed at scuttling it, the Georgetown Metered Parking Project will resume on Monday with an easing of enforcement measures and lower, tiered rates to be implemented once amended bylaws are approved and gazetted.

While welcoming the protest against the implementation of the metered parking system in Georgetown as a sign that citizens are finally engaged with governance, Communities Minister Ronald Bulkan has reiterated that central government is not inclined to intervene.

Against the backdrop of an escalating row over paid parking, the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) yesterday announced that property rates will go up by 10% – the first hike since 1998 – and it is projecting an $833M deficit for 2017.

Unless President David Granger agrees to a meeting within a fortnight, miners yesterday warned that the country will be treated to a slowdown in declarations and mass protest over issues of contention, including new tax measures that they say will hurt their operations.

The Private Sector Commission (PSC) yesterday called on government to reconsider proposed changes to the Value-Added Tax (VAT) regime, while warning that they would hurt the business community by driving up costs and forcing higher prices on consumers.

The D’Urban Park project was financed and managed in its first phase by Homestretch Development Incorporated, a private company owned by Larry London and associates, Public Infrastructure Minister David Patterson told the National Assembly last evening.

Queen’s College students yesterday protested the proposed construction of a canteen in an area on the school’s grounds presently used for Agricultural Science.

The Mayor and Councillors of the Georgetown last evening voted to ask the central government for a $600 million “bailout” to pay creditors and meet expenses.

It’s Saturday afternoon and children, freed from the responsibility of having to prepare for school the next day, spend the time playing on the street.