These have proven successful over the years and there are currently many organisations and NGOs with which Government has enjoined efforts to serve the nation, faith-based organizations being primary among them.
On Wednesday last His Excellency President Bharrat Jagdeo headed a list of 46 awardees honoured by the Guyana Conference of Seventh Day Adventists for his outstanding service to the nation.
Executive of the church body, Mrs. Barbara Savoury, who presented the award to the President, said: “This award is presented to His Excellency Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, President of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, the youngest-serving President, outstanding statesman, insightful environmentalist and dynamic leader.”
This church maintains no affiliations to politics or politicians per se, so when that religious body recognizes the contributions of a political personality for outstanding contributions to a nation, then due heed must be paid to that gesture, because it is based mainly on merit.
And the President who, despite all the personal sacrifices he has made, despite all the hard work he has done, despite his unrelenting commitment to nation-building, despite his even-handed administration in the nation, despite his phenomenal achievements in the global arena – all of which have redounded to the benefit of Guyana and Guyanese, is constantly criticized in the most derogatory terms by detractors with self-serving agendas.
Sometimes, when the allegations and accusations threaten national welfare and gains, he responds to the critics.  As PPP General-Secretary, Donald Ramotar said during an interview with the Chronicle: “The president’s hard work and brilliant strategies have introduced synergies that have literally transformed our nation from near beggars to becoming a nation graphed on international indices as a middle-income country, which is no mean feat, especially given what we started with.  He has taken development to a new level.”
Dismissing the continuum of criticisms and accusations by the opposition parties and media houses as fear of the government’s success in nation-building – both in infrastructural development and in a social context- he deprecated the opposition’s proclivity to shoot down every project the government proposes or initiates on one pretext or another, even going so far as to attempt to stop much-needed funding for developmental works in the country, for which the people would suffer, and named the LCDS funds as a case in point.
While conceding that there is corruption at various levels in government, he challenged the opposition to find any country that did not have corrupt persons working within its agencies and departments, and asked if they can completely weed out corruption if they attain office.  However, he contended that detractors never mention the many steps that Government has taken to inhibit dishonesty in the administrative construct, and that most of the allegations have been proven to be false, but the opposition parties and media houses never have the decency nor honesty to retract their words, because they are aware that, once they have vented their untruths long enough and loud enough the public would continue the tirade, some of the mud of which they envisage will stick on the President and consequently the Government.
Continuing, he said:  “When the President responds with anger he is not defending himself, per se, but the policies and programmes of the government that involves much hard and unremitting work by many dedicated persons, of every race, religion, and political persuasion, who do not deserve the relentless pillorying that is conducted on a daily basis by disgruntled persons who have at one time or another clandestinely sought something or some illicit favour from the government and had been rejected, or the opposition who have their own agendas, and which never have the public good or the people’s welfare at heart as the PPP does.  The President is human, after all, and the lies and misrepresentations of situations that are constantly propagated by those persons are unconscionable.  He is not a madman to attack anyone without justification, and it takes severe and continuous provocation, especially when the national good is threatened, to drive him to a response, and I applaud him for setting the story straight.  One cannot take his responses out of context, but Jagdeo responds in anger when the lies and deliberate distortions of facts negatively impact government’s development initiatives.”
The President is human, after all, and all the relentless and undeserved pillorying most likely would have caused him much angst over the years; but it is the people, he said, from whom he draws his strength to carry on.
No doubt this wonderful gesture by this church body that can in no way be described as a PPP affiliate would have been salve to the many wounds inflicted on his consciousness by his unrelenting detractors.
However, being true to himself, he placed the gesture in a national context when he said: “I wanted to be here to say thank you for the tremendous work you have done in Guyana, and for assisting with the complex social tasks that we have set ourselves in the country….I wanted to say that personally.”
Congratulating the church for the work it has been doing, and continues to do, in fostering, among other things, a sense of patriotism among Guyanese, the tremendous social work it undertakes in society, and the partnership it shares with the government (in dealing with social issues), apart from its work in preaching the Gospel, the President reiterated, “Guyana will never be able to achieve its true potential unless there is partnership between the government and the church.”
One of the most enduring legacies of the Jagdeo administration will be the partnerships that have been forged during the years of his leadership between Government and the people of the land, across all the divides, that have, more than any other, been testimony that when Guyanese work together for the common good the nation prospers.
With the award conferred on the President, the Guyana Conference of Seventh Day Adventists has proven that it has chosen to serve the Lord by serving the people of the land; and this gesture, through its recognition of the great work of President Jagdeo and the nation-building policies and programmes he has driven, is a consecration of what the President described as the tremendous social work it is doing in the society toward the nation’s achievement of its true potential.
According to the President, this partnership is priceless in its benefits to the nation.