THE Coalition Government is delivering to the Rupununi hinterland region, the better quality of life that it has promised.

This is according to Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo, who visited the Upper Takutu-Upper Rupununi (Region 9) over the weekend to commission the new $473 million Barrack Retreat Corridor, which is the name for the four-lane concrete and asphalted road in the Lethem township.

Writing in his weekly My Turn column under the caption, “Way Down South”, the Prime Minister noted that the Coalition Government has pushed unprecedented development in this frontier region. Apart from central government spending, the regional allocation during 2015-2018 amounted to some $950 million for roads, bridges and other capital works in the Rupununi region.

The commissioning of the modern Lethem Roundabout coincided with the annual Chamber of Commerce Expo, and a fan-out by government ministers to the villages in Central and South Rupununi.

Minister of Social Protection Mrs. Amna Ally, while opening a multi-purpose building in Hiawa on Saturday last, noted that under the Sustainable Livelihood Entrepreneurship Development programme (SLED) over $200 million was spent on 19 projects.

On the same day, Minister Ally commissioned a new well at Kaicumbay and Director-General, Joseph Harmon, another well at Yupukari in Central Rupununi. New wells have been constructed at Aishalton, St. Ignatius, Annai, Karasabai and Hiawa. The electricity system has been upgraded in Annai and Sand Creek, with on-going solar and hydro power at Moco-Moco and Kumu.

Health facilities have been provided at St. Ignatius, Shulinab and Lethem, and new education facilities were built in Nappi, Annai, Aishalton, Sand Creek, Katoka, Yarong Paru and Baishaidhrun.

According to Mr. Nagamootoo, as we travel in the south, Guyanese would see the stupendous prospects for green growth basking side by side with oil extraction way up north, in our maritime sea. “This complementarity would make Guyana unique, as she is blessed with an abundance of both sweet oil and fertile soil”, he noted.

The Lethem Roundabout forms the gateway from South America to the Atlantic, with portions of the long-awaited Lethem-Linden highway taking shape, and already compacted with laterite, as part of the planned all-weather highway to the Kurupukari Crossing, to be joined with the Mabura-Linden stretch.