– President Ramotar

PRESIDENT Donald Ramotar said that his Government is committed to building and strengthening the local economy and implementing various social programmes, as it has done over the past 20 years, so as to offer Guyanese citizens a better quality of life. He is hopeful that in so doing, this will stem the issue of migration.He was at the time responding to questions about Guyana’s population decline as reported in the preliminary results of the 2012 Census.
The preliminary results of the Guyana population and housing census, which commenced in September 2012, by the Guyana National Bureau of Statistics (GNBS), recorded a marginal reduction of 3,339 persons with the population count of 751,223.
The report looks at the broad parameters of the population and a more detailed analysis of the findings, including ethnic breakdown of the population, and as well the composition of the foreign-born population, is still be computed. This is expected to be completed and published in the second quarter of 2015.
The preliminary report pointed to fluctuation in population growth rate on account of changes in the population dynamics, such as fertility, mortality and migration, and changes in employment status.
With regard to migration, President Ramotar said that this is an age-old issue that began in the 1960s and continued in the 70s and 80s. He explained that in many cases, the families of these “economic migrants” were divided, and when the opportunity presented itself to reunite, they chose to do so in more developed societies.
He reminded too that this issue is by no means unique to Guyana; however, the Government can only work to further develop the country, as it has been doing, in an effort to curtail migration.
“What is of note is that we do not have migration because of political persecution and political violation of people’s human rights, those are the things that are most important for me,” the Head of State said.
The 2012 Census marks the seventeenth national census, and a seventh post-war National Population and Housing Census ever conducted in Guyana. It was conducted as part of the Caribbean’s regional effort coordinated by the CARICOM Secretariat and in compliance with the United Nations’ mandate to execute the 2010 Global Round of Censuses.
Apart from being a total enumeration of the population, it also provided an inventory of the building stocks. The preliminary 2012 census report showed that the building stocks in Guyana increased from 187,696 in 2002 to 219,509 in 2012. This represented an increase of 16.9 percent or an absolute increase of 31,813. (GINA)