By Shirley Thomas

ITS principal focus is to foster a culture of peace, lawfulness and happiness within these 83,000 square miles of ours. That’s according to a group calling itself “A Guyana Nation Building Corps (AGNBC),” which last week unveiled its list of candidates as the nation gets ready for the March 18 Local Government Elections.
“Our principal focus is to promote a culture of peace, lawfulness, and a culture of happiness within this nation and communities within the Guyana sphere,” said leader of the 28-strong group, Joshua Griffith, as he made known their programme for the development of communities within Guyana.
The forum was held under the theme: “Safe, Smart, Sustainable Georgetown: The Heritage City.”
Other plans for the development of the municipality include:
* Providing and efficient and transparent Administration
* Consulting with all stakeholders before making decisions
* Reform, the Municipal Laws and Regulations
* Hire 300 plus persons to be trained as environmentalists for maintaining the Municipality of Georgetown
* Construct nation building development centres in the communities
* Build technologically advanced drainage and irrigation systems
* Implement Municipality households and commercial solid waste recycling system
* Provide user-friendly smart technology for Municipality internal and external business services.
* More efficient and effective use of the City Constabulary throughout the Municipality of Georgetown
* Provide income-producing and wealth creation opportunities for citizens.
Meanwhile, Dr. Mozart Thomas, Leader of the Guyana National Civic Promotion Programme (GNCPP) also presented his candidates, while unveiling plans for their electoral programme for the way forward for the Georgetown Municipality.
Said he: “We are here today to primarily share with you what are our plans for the development of the Municipality of Georgetown… What we have here is a group of volunteers from different spheres of life, who are willing to get involved in community development.”
He made it clear that for AGBNC, it is important to look, not just at what is happening in the Georgetown municipalities, but also to look at what is going on nationwide.
In effect, he described the forum as one of recruiting the first set of nation and community builders into the whole programme.
Noting that there are many individual groups and individuals nationwide that are participating in the electoral process, Dr Thomas said the AGNBC supports them all.
“There are systems in place, through which councillors, after the elections, can get together with communities, through the Congress of Local Democratic Organs and sit and strategise what is good for all the communities countrywide,” he said.
In relation to voter education in preparation for the LGE, he is of the opinion that a lot more could have been done to prepare the masses for this crucial undertaking.
“It is our position,” he said, “that as the county prepares for LGE, it should have been more prepared; we find that we are involved, because the only way we are able to have a say and to uphold our constitutional duty under Article 13, is to be involved in Electoral Process.”
Meanwhile, Griffith said that in light of the fact that we have not had LGE for several years now, it is important that this fresh group of councillors elected now set a firm foundation forward, and even more importantly, that we have young people involved in this process. Hence the combination of the group.
Griffith said it is a good opportunity for people who have the interest of other people and the community at large at heart, to come onboard. “This is the mechanism that provides that opportunity to get them involved… if you are community member-friendly, then sign on, Griffith urged.
And Frank Gaul of the Lodge/D’Urban Backland Group attempted to clear the air on misconceptions about who elects the Mayor and Chairman of the Neighbourhood Democrtic Council (NDC).
“I want to reiterate,” he said, “that the public cannot vote for a Mayor; they will be voting for councillors for their respective constituencies within the Georgetown Municipality. Likewise, in the NDCs, they will be voting for Councillors; they cannot vote for Chairman of an NDC or for a Mayor of the town or city.
“When the Council is formed, they will, in turn, vote for the NDC Chairman.”
Gaul stressed that the AGNBC is here to stand in line with the precedence already set by the President of Guyana , Brigadier David Granger, about nation building and AGNBC intends to emulate and strongly support those principles as set by the President.
The candidates reached presented their plan and vision for the ideal Municipality.