During Cabinet outreach…
WORKS to develop some 600 house lots in Tuschen New Housing Scheme, East Bank Essequibo, at a cost of approximately $330M to benefit 2,600 people and the importance of hydropower in Guyana’s development were highlighted during the Cabinet Outreach last Wednesday. Tuschen was one of the targeted communities visited by Minister of Housing and Water, Mr. Irfaan Ali; Minister of Health, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy and People’s Progressive Party (PPP) General Secretary, Mr. Donald Ramotar.
They walked through and held two meetings there, as other ministerial groups did in the rest of Region Three (West Demerara/Essequibo Islands), including at Vergenoegen, Philadelphia, Greenwich Park, Parika/Hydronie and Hubu, also on East Bank Essequibo.
The fan-out concluded at Tuschen New Housing Scheme, too, with President Bharrat Jagdeo interacting with and addressing scores of people.
Ali said the Tuschen development of ‘Lots 1 and 2’ is part of the Low Income Settlement (LIS) Two programme and those were the first set of projects awarded this year. ‘Lot 1’ is nearly 70 per cent complete while ‘Lot 2’ is between 55 and 60 per cent on the way to completion.
“The contract duration is at the end of September and mid-October. However, we are hoping to have this project completed long before that, by the end of July,” he said.
Ali said the achievement would add a further 660 house lots to Tuschen New Housing Scheme and components of the ongoing works include an all-weather road, water network and initial earthen drainage, costing $330M, for 2,600 beneficiaries.
He said that undertaking is in addition to others at Schoon Ord, Uitvlugt, Anna Catherina, Onderneeming and Bell West, all ongoing in Region Three.
“So, by the end of the year, we would have had almost 2,000 new house lots being made available in Region Three alone,” Ali anticipated.
He and the others also inspected the new $600M Tuschen Scheme well to improve water delivery to 12,000 people.
According to him at year end, Government would have invested at least $6 billion on housing alone, after $1.2 billion, in Tuschen alone, by 2009 year end.
Ali, pointing out that this Government has consistently delivered on its promises, said, presently, a new primary school is being constructed in the community and, only this week, he signed the second batch of projects under the LIS Two programme which will see a further $655M investment.
Another component of the US$27.9M Second LIS programme is the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) core house pilot project which targets allottees in new and existing schemes and, essentially, US$2.2M has been budgeted, overall, to construct 400 starter houses.
Terrible criticisms
Scoffing at what he called some of the terrible criticisms in the media about hydroelectricity in this country, Ramotar reiterated that it is one very critical area if Guyana is going to move to the next level of development.
He maintained that, to move even further ahead, the country has to go in the direction of cheap energy.
“One of the reasons that we have been looking at alternative kinds of energy (is) not only to avoid damaging the environment by using fossil fuel but looking for cheaper energy that is cleaner for our country to develop and that is the direction in which the whole world will have to go in the future,” Ramotar contended.
He said the Opposition had 28 years to introduce hydropower but failed, “wasted money and were not accountable.”
“And I conclude, in my own mind, that this is a demonstration of their own failure. They don’t want the hydroproject to be realised under this Government because it is going to expose them tremendously. It is going to expose what were the consequences as a result of the misappropriation of funds under those days of governance and what was the cost to the country,” Ramotar said.
“There is no country in CARICOM (Caribbean Community) that can beat us on human resource capacity, on intellectual capacity – we have that, and we have abundant natural resources, but one of the critical components in achieving and promoting a manufacturing sector is the cost of energy,” he said, noting that the cost of electricity to manufacturing sector and every single household will go down.
Ramotar also made mention of the fibre optic cables being put into use by Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T) and the Government at the more cutting edge of technology.
He explained that the GT&T one is to help in the development of information technology (IT) and the Government’s to connect all its services through e-governance (electronic governance) and open up Guyana to huge investment ande employment opportunities in call centres.
“And that is the direction that we have to go. We have the capacity and the ability to catch up very quickly with the rest of the world once we go in that direction,” he assured.
“Those are some of the investments that we are making now, so that, very soon, our country can move, at a very rapid rate, create a lot of employment and connect ourselves to the rest of the world.
“All of these things demonstrate that what is a priority for this Government is not only building the roads or the buildings but directly to develop our people so that they can be able to deal with the modern times that we have in the world; so that they can provide a better life for themselves and for their families and, in the process of doing so for themselves, they will be able to develop our country and make it a much better place,” Ramotar stated.