President David Granger recently announced his government’s intention to set up a squatter resettlement commission to among other relocate citizens living in slums and ultimately lift them out of poverty that have afflicted them for years. There are scores of squatter settlements across the country all of which sprung up under the PPP administration, especially during the presidency of Bharrat Jagdeo.

Incidentally back in May 2001, then Opposition Leader, Hugh Desmond Hoyte and the then President Jagdeo signed an agreement to, among other things, address the needs of depressed communities, which were identified. While the country may have had an economic programme at the time, it did not have a direct positive impact in communities across the country, thus giving rise to the need for special attention to the under-served to improve their socio-economic circumstances.

Oftentimes, tackling poverty alleviation, though it may form part of a national programme, requires a focused approach that would result in conceptualising and planning programmes to meet unique needs. , President Granger’s announcement of the squatter resettlement and his stated intention to ensure that every family has a roof over their head fits into this thinking. For instance, of primary importance to Plastic City, which is a depressed, thrown-up community, would be a Relocation Programme or as announced by the President a Resettlement commission to identify house lots for the construction of homes. The needs of Buxton, on the other hand, which was one of the identified communities as well as Non-Pareil/ Enterprise, De Kinderen and Meten-Meer-Zorg, would more likely be addressing the hindrance to farming.

Unfortunately, then President Jagdeo never honoured the May 2001 agreement in its entirety and in the absence of the needed attention, conditions in these communities deteriorated. Since 2001 several other communities would have fallen into the depressed category. Government in collaboration with Food For the Poor has recently removed dozes of families who were living squalor on Lombard Street to a more habitable community along the East Bank Demerara. In failing to tackle poverty and its concomitant social ills in a concerted manner, the deprivations would be more severe.

Inaction on the part of the PPP government meant that the communities at reference have been allowed to become dependent on other communities that directly benefit from the macro-economic programme. In the case of Buxton, much of its farmlands had become idle due to poor access roads and drainage. Consequently, this had impacted the community’s ability for self-sufficiency in food, resulting in villagers becoming dependent on other communities to provide them with what they are quite capable of providing for themselves.
The under-utilisation of lands had created other disadvantages in areas such as employment and economic opportunities, which in turn have implications for development for self, community, and nation. The challenges residents in Plastic City face have a far-reaching impact on the nation’s health. In this community, which has sprung up in Vreed-en-Hoop in response to a housing crisis, the residents are living in shacks and on the shoreline.

As the sea tide rises, the water runs under their homes, taking with it wherever it goes whatever faeces it picks up along the way. There is not only an absence of running water, but the likelihood of contracting water-borne diseases that can escalate into a health crisis. President Jagdeo has had a decade in office since signing the Agreement, and could have used the opportunity to develop these communities. When attention is paid to some communities while others are ignored, development is not only lopsided, but the environment is being created to nurture anti-social behaviours, forced migration, increased poverty and its attendant consequences.

Government must never be seen as being far removed from the realities around it, or insensitive and uncaring to the needs of the least and most vulnerable among us. Since the coalition came into office the Guyana Water Inc has taken potable water to Sophia and scores of Indigenous communities and the Ministry of Infrastructure has constructed a number of roads in the communities which also considered depressed. That these things are happening under the David Granger/ Moses Nagamootoo government can only be seen as steps in a progressive direction. If the government is being guided by the agreement then President Jagdeo refused to honour, this would be a constructive approach to governance. If, however, this is not the case, which we strongly believe, it may be opportune to dust off that agreement and seek to address a plight that is more than a decade overdue and by extension has escalated the deprivations ten-fold. Where Mr. Jagdeo, as President of Guyana, has failed the depressed communities that his then Government and Opposition had both agreed deserve attention, the APNU+AFC government could find it worthwhile to pursue.