At Linden walkabout…
-Pledges to be in closer touch with community
PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo said that Guyana must spot the trends that could deliver prosperity for the country: Information and Communication Technology, a green economy and renewable energy.
The President was speaking at a public meeting during yesterday’s Cabinet outreach in Linden. The meeting took place at Watooka House, and saw in attendance members of the Cabinet, including Prime Minister Sam Hinds and Secretary to the Cabinet, Dr. Roger Luncheon.
Earlier in the day, the various ministers fanned out in Linden and other Region Ten (Upper Demerara /Berbice) communities addressing the concerns of the residents.
At the end of the meeting, Jagdeo created five working groups comprised of Ministers of Government to take note of the individual concerns of the residents and to report back to the Cabinet.
However, at the beginning of the meeting, the President expressed concern that there had been a miscommunication as to who was allowed to come to the meeting.
“People were told that we need five persons [representing] each community. I don’t want people to think that I only want to meet small groups of people. I hope to be back soon…people must have broad access to their leaders,” the President said, adding:
“I would be back very very soon. We are moving forward…although we are not here frequently, many ministers come…you have the regional authorities. I want to publicly apologise to the people who heard that they would be restricted.”
With regard to developmental plans he has in mind for the township and the country as a whole, President Jagdeo said: “We are focused on big issues; moving the country forward… Sometimes people are not always aware of all the facts and we are therefore judged [harshly].”
Having gotten that off his chest, the President said that there is a $1.5 billion recurring budget, as well as a capital budget of $950 million for Linden alone, and that the Regional Democratic Council for Region Ten and the various Ministries are in control of those matters.
He recounted that over the past seven years, the government has subsidized Linden’s electricity to the tune of $2.2 billion, the equivalent of US$1M. This is why, he said, the people of Linden are able to pay only a fraction of the $50 per kilowatt hour it costs to generate electricity.
“When I hear people say we have neglected Region Ten, you would see that on a per capita basis, [we spend the most] on Linden,” he said.
He also referred to Central Government’s paying 360 workers close to $8 million per month to carry out drainage and irrigation works in the community, which comes up to a tidy $96 million per year. “When we spent money on a call centre,” he said, “we had [a bad start] but we have 111 people working.”
He spoke too of the Linden Economic Advancement Programme (LEAP) and the way it has helped bring economic gain to the community, and noted that a successor programme is to continue with a view to assisting persons.
With regard to the proposed opening of a branch of  Citizens Bank in Linden come  January, President Jagdeo said the government will work at ensuring that people of Linden and all of Region Ten have access to adequate banking and other facilities.
“When people talk of relative neglect, that is not the case,” he said. “We have been even handed in [the distribution of resources].”
The President explained that at a time when the world was mired in a financial turmoil, Guyana was able to remain on course through prudent management of its economy. He reminded those present that in many of the developed countries, millions of people lost their jobs and their homes. He said that millions too had defaulted on credit card payments because of the global financial and economic crisis. “Guyana’s revenue growth continued in a crisis year. We had the second highest growth rate in the hemisphere. We fixed the economy at the macro level,” he said.
To bolster his argument, the President drew reference to Jamaica’s initially having four aluminum plants, three of which have since been forced to shut down, while the fourth  had to undergo scaling back restructuring to remain alive. Noting that Jamaica depended heavily on bauxite for as much as 58 per cent of its income, President Jagdeo said: “We have managed to keep the operations of RUSAL alive,” and that the reason the Chinese-owned company, BOSAI is also still in operation is “because our focus is keeping jobs alive.”
Noting that the government is working with both companies to ensure that they move forward with value-added investments, he said that BOSAI has been having difficulty finding the money to move ahead with their planned aluminum smelter, which would have been a US$1 billion investment in the Linden area.
RUSAL, meanwhile, is also studying the feasibility of investing in a hydropower facility and a smelter, he said, as it had contemplated in a Memorandum of Understanding with the Government. Noting that it is a long-held dream of the government’s to get value-added activities going in the country in a bid to bring jobs to the people, the president said:  “This is not a dream anymore. We are working on [these things].”
Noting also that at one time Guyana was spending close to US$100 million per year to service debts from the past, the president said this cost Guyana 94 per cent of revenue in debt servicing, but that thankfully, it has since managed to pay back US$1.5 billion or $300 billion.
“Today, our debt burden is not high,” he said, adding that the money saved can now be put back into the economy. Here, he mentioned that Government has built eight new hospitals.
He told the gathering that to staff those hospitals, 750 new doctors will be returning from training, part of a regiment of 1000 young people receiving training in various disciplines.
“This is where the money is going… More money into education, but [we are] still concerned over value for money,” President Jagdeo said. “We have to ensure that every cent we spend is spent wisely…we must get transparency,” he said, adding that people must build what they say they would build in the tender document. “I plan to have allegations of corruption investigated,” he declared.
Having said that, he said it is imperative that the authorities do whatever they can, within the boundaries of the law, to ensure that contractors in Linden get contracts to execute projects in the community.  There are ways, he said, of giving preference to local people for drainage and irrigation work, but again, there must be value for money.
The President said that those persons carrying out the drainage and irrigation works must be treated with respect and must be paid on time. He said that people in the health delivery sector and in the education sector must deliver of their best, and that persons must not sit on the job and gripe about the pay; that they should instead leave the job and give someone else a chance.
“I have always argued that government services must be accountable. “We have to ensure that people are treated well when they come for services…There are too many mini-gods in the country,” President Jagdeo said. “We have to be more people-centred.”
He said that the Ministry of Health now has in place a service agreement with the hospitals. “If it (poor service) goes beyond a level and there is no explanation, the CEO must face the music,” the President said.
He said that in Guyana, people must start measuring performance by output and not on the amount of time on the job. The President spoke of Government’s putting in place an inspectorate that will report not to the Ministry of Education, but to him directly, and this tool could be
used by the Teaching Service Commission to determine who gets a promotion and who does not. “There are many who work hard, but there are a lot of slackers too,” he said.
On the issue of renewable energy, the President said that by the end of the year, it is hoped that the Amaila Falls Hydro project will commence construction.
“We are working to generate a new sector,” he said, speaking also of the fibre-optic cable that the Government is financing and will source from Brazil. He said that this investment, coupled with the recent investment by the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company in a fibre-optic cable from Suriname, will send the cost of bandwidth down by 80 per cent. President Jagdeo told the gathering that one company will increase its staff complement from just over 1,000 persons to over 4,000.
And with respect to the Low-Carbon Development Strategy, President Jagdeo said that persons will continue to cut trees and mine for minerals, but these will be done in accordance with stringent regulations to ensure sustainability. “We could do these things; safeguard the forests and earn money.”
He said that should carbon prices move in a way that is favourable, and once there is movement on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), then Guyana could earn in the vicinity of US$400 – 500 million per year.
“We have to spot the trends that could deliver prosperity: cheaper power, ICTs and a green economy,” he said, adding that with new thinking in agriculture, Guyana could increase its rice output through the development of large scale rice farming in the country’s savannahs