Dear Editor,
IN Nigel Hughes’ so-called study, the learned attorney contended that Region Four, being the capital of Guyana and the most populous region representing 41 per cent of the population who reside in this region, and which is predominantly Afro-Guyanese, is being discriminated against by the government.

To this end, Nigel sought to compare and contrast Region Four’s capital budget allocation with two predominantly Indo-Guyanese regions, namely, Regions Three and Six.
In Budget 2022, the capital allocation to Region Three was $898 million, Region Four – $782 million, and Region Six – $962.5 million.

First and foremost, it is worth noting that a careful examination of the regional capital budgets across all 10 administrative regions revealed that the capital budgetary allocation at this level is limited to under one billion dollars.

This means that capital expenditure exceeding one billion dollars is channeled through the central government apparatus.

Consequently, the methodology employed in the study conducted by Nigel Hughes and his team is deeply flawed because the findings of their analysis did not present in a true sense, the full picture regarding the allocation of public financial resources across the 10 administrative regions.

In this regard, Nigel Hughes’ analysis also ignored the unique development needs of each region, the population density, socio-economic structure, geographic dispensation, and the size of each region in terms of square kilometres (Km2).
The table shows the regional population, capital allocation, population, population density and size in terms of Km2.
Region Three, which has a population density of 29 persons per Km2 with a size of 3,755 Km2, the capital allocation of $898 million represents $239,000 per Km2.

Region Four, on the other hand, is the smallest administrative region with only 2,232 Km2 and the highest population density of 140 persons per Km2. As such, the capital allocation for Region Four per Km2 represents $350,000 per Km2.

Region Six is the third largest Administrative Region of the ten regions, with a low population density of three persons per Km2 and the lowest capital allocation per Km2 relative to Region Four (Region Four was allocated 13 times more per Km2), given that the capital allocation for Region Six represents $27,000 per Km2.

Of note, the population density of Region Four is five times the population density of Region Three and 47 times the population density of Region Six. Also, Region Three is 1.7 times larger than Region Four and Region Six is 16 times larger than Region Four in terms of square kilometres.

In light of the foregoing analysis, the budgetary allocation in 2022 for capital projects for Region Four is the highest per Km2 considering as well that Region Four has the highest population density relative to all the other Administrative Regions.

To interpret this analysis differently from a layman’s perspective, the size of each region is an important factor because infrastructure development such as road, land development, building, water transport, bridges, agriculture development, equipment for health and education (hospitals and schools)–obviously, the size (square kilometer) has to do with distance coupled with the logistics of each region, these altogether will have cost implications.

Another crucial point I wish to highlight is that the budgetary allocation for capital expenditure across the ten Administrative Regions are not only the regional allocation, but also allocation through the central government budgets at the ministry level as mentioned earlier.

So, for instance, the Ministry of Public Works infrastructure budget for 2022 was over $80 billion for roads and bridges across the 10 administrative regions.
The four-lane highway from Eccles to Mandela Avenue, Sheriff Street-Mandela Avenue Road network and other new four lane highway roads, which in turn, will open up new lands for commercial, industrial, and residential development in Region Four, would need to be considered in the analysis to understand the total allocation of public financial resources for capital works the region.

These allocations are not reflected in the regional budgets. Similarly, the Ministry of Housing’s budget in 2022 was about $12 billion which included development for Region Four that was excluded in the Nigel Hughes study.

In fact, the entire capital budget for the country through all of the various ministries and agencies do have allocation of capital resources that when expended, will cut across all the regions.
With these in mind, taking the total allocation into account–that is, the regional budgets (which is limited to under one billion for all of the administrative regions) and the central government budget, the total capital allocation for the regions will amount to millions of dollars per Km2 versus thousands of dollars per Km2 as demonstrated above using the regional allocations only.

To demonstrate this point, the capital budget for two major road projects alone in Region Four amounted to about $16 billion, which would translate to $7.6 million per Km2.
One has to also bear in mind that the total capital budget for Region Four will, in fact, be much higher when the capital allocation for all the other sectors is included–such as for physical and social infrastructure especially in the public health and education sectors.

In the final analysis, contrary to the views presented by Nigel Hughes in his so-called study, which is now proven to be profoundly flawed, there is no evidence of discrimination or marginalisation by the government in the manner in which public financial resources are allocated regionally and nationally.

Yours faithfully,
Joel Bhagwandin