CONTRACTORS are urged to refrain from falling prey to the lure of offering bribes as a condition for obtaining contracts.
On the contrary, contractors should see themselves as patriots, not as mendicants or beggars who must stoop to such low dodges as being involved in bribery.
It is incumbent on every Guyanese to give support to President Donald Ramotar who has pledged to do his best to weed out corruption from the Guyanese society. It is the task of every citizen to hold fast to the principles that the late Mahatma Gandhi would be proud of; that is, that the hands reaching out for a financial contribution to carry out the duties for which he has been paid is equal to a spy who sells the secret of his country for the gain of filthy lucre.
Persons appending their signatures to contracts undertaking to carry out specific works must not hesitate to do so.
They must carry out their contracts to the end. In clearer words, contractors must prove that they are worth their pound of gold as they strive to achieve their goals.
Every contractor who is worthy of his calling must not  fail to recognise the fact that all of us as Guyanese must be proud of our calling, and must be prepared to offer a one-year warranty on the projects that are assigned, bearing in mind the commitment to undertake specific projects and at specific times.
Everyone must be proud of being a Guyanese. After all is said and done, the performance of contractors will play an integral part  in promoting the cause of the development of Guyana, and ours is the role of performing efficiently since Guyana belongs to all of us. This is our opportunity to see Guyana move forward.
Perhaps the time has long passed when, as a country, we ought to have building codes with the relevant inspectors and things of that nature. With such an introduction of the building code and with the giving of warranty by contractors, we could look to tomorrow, conscious that the deplorable conditions of roads built by contractors and the buildings that are substandard to say the least will become something of the past.
I feel constrained to once again appeal to contractors against involving themselves in bribery, since it follows that the resources that ought to go into the project suffer from depletion. The time is now when individuals must show the necessary courage and pledge that all contracts in future will be entered into guided by the principles of dedication to the cause.