– at opening of annual regional development caucus

BUDGETARY allocations to Guyana’s administrative regions have increased by over 70 per cent since 2015, and with decentralisation and regional development a fundamental part of President David Granger’s “Decade of Development”, even more investment and development can be expected over the next ten years.

As such, inefficiency from regional administrators will hardly be accepted, and now more than ever, regional officials must deliberate plans and strategies to ensure maximum productivity going forward.

This was emphasised by Minister of Communities Ronald Bulkan as he delivered the feature address at his ministry’s annual 2020 “Action Round Table for Regional Development”, which is being held at the Arthur Chung Convention Centre at Liliendaal.

“We must be able to maximise the impact of interventions. Inefficiency will not be countenanced; slothful implementation of the Public Sector Investment Programme (PSIP) would be unacceptable. Regional budgetary allocations will be further increased, making it even more necessary for this inefficient trend to be reversed,” Bulkan stressed.

“We are a petroleum-producing State; citizens’ expectation of public administrators would rightly be heightened. They will rightly demand more from the regions and government. It is President Granger’s intention to realise the promise of a good life.”

In 2014, the total budgetary allocation to regions stood at $23.9 billion; this rose to $40.8 billion in 2019, with regions accounting for approximately 14 per cent of the national budget, the Minister said.

For 2019, the Ministry of Communities (MoC) was awarded an $8.3 billion budget allocation, inclusive of the over 150 per cent increase in the Ministry’s capital budgetary allocation, which moved from the $2.876 billion it was in 2016 to $5.417 billion dollars.
“These increases resulted in tangible improvement in the delivery of public services and the quality of lives of residents countrywide. Public health and education delivery have been significantly improved. An analysis of the top 20 achievements of the regions during the past four-and-a-half years would reveal that the work of the regions far exceeded any other period,” Minister Bulkan conveyed.

“The impact of our decentralised approach is now beginning to be realized, as residents can now access new and improved public services right within their regions instead of journeying all the way to Georgetown.”

Established in 2015 with the change of administration, the MoC is purposed with administering development of the Regions through the monitoring of the respective Regional Democratic Councils (RDCs), Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDC) and municipalities; promoting good governance, and facilitating infrastructure development and training.

Since its establishment, the Ministry has overseen a robust decentralisation programme that saw many essential services that were once constrained to the capital city being taken to several respective regions across the country.

“Citizens, whether they live on the coastland or hinterland, can look forward to tangible improvement in the quality of life through the efficient and effective delivery of public services by the regions. Our founding leaders did not whimsically sit and determine that these regions should exist. The ten regions are not ornamental, but is a primary institution in stimulating national development. This administration holds firmly to the policy of regionalism,” Minister Bulkan emphasised.

Since 2015, the Ministry has established four new capital towns, and has restored local government democracy with the holding of two Local Government elections.
In the 2019 budget, municipalities saw their budget allocation increase from $15 million to $18 million each, with the exception of Georgetown, which received $30 million; allocations to NDCs was increased to from $3 million to $5 million each.

Bulkan highlighted that over the years, in the Ministry’s regional apportionment of its budget “no region was left behind”.

“The five budgets crafted by this administration is testament that we are not vindictive or discriminatory administration, no region was left behind. Political affiliation was and remains irrelevant,” Bulkan informed.

Going forward, more of the same can be expected to obtain.
“The next coalition government will ensure that each region realises its full potential to the benefit of its residents. We will move full steam ahead with our plan to promote regional identity, patriotism; each region will have a Plan of Action for Regional Development (PARD); the capacity of regions to execute larger projects will be further strengthened with the full operationalization of regional procurement and planning departments,” Bulkan said.
The regional officials must therefore position themselves to align their pace with that of the need for the growing development.

“As we await the election of the new council and the passage of the 2020 budget, it is incumbent on each programme head to review your system, identify the impediments, possible solutions and be prepared to offer the best possible advice so that we can hit the ground running,” Bulkan said.

The two day roundtable first began in 2017. In the past the forum has focused on issues of human resources, procurement and financial management, while his year focus is being placed on the need for collaboration and its importance in building sustainable communities.

The two-day session is being held under the theme “Advancing Local Government and Sustainable Community Development Through Collaboration for Effective Service Delivery In A Green Economy”.

“In this new era of development, collaboration will assume a greater role. Working together to achieve a common strategic objective is fundamental. I wish to again stress the importance of collaboration within and among regions and central government agencies as a means of increasing efficiency in the implementation of your respective programming department,” the Minister said.

“Effective collaboration will assist with the identification and resolution of problems, allows for knowledge transfer through the sharing of best practice and experience, opens up new channels for communication, [and] minimizes duplication. The success or failure of this system is to a great extent dependent on your actions, every task or project whether costing $10,000 or $10 million must be approached with a focus of adding value to the region. The archaic centralist mind-set must give way to a development mindset for this policy of regionalism or decentralisation to work.”