PRESIDENT Donald Ramotar yesterday traveled to the trouble community of Linden to meet with residents even as they protest the increase of a proposed tariff increase and which the government has since taken off of the table and for which a committee has been selected and agreed upon to review all aspects of the issues.
Accompanying the President yesterday were Ms. Gail Teixeira, Presidential Adviser on Governance, Public Works Minister Robeson Benn and Presidential Adviser on Empowerment, Odinga Lumumba. The President as part of his visit yesterday paid visits to some of the burnt out sites and also paid a visit to the BOSAI operations. Mr. Ramotar also stopped at several points and met with residents who did not attend the meeting at Watooka House in the mining town.
Addressing the main issue of the electricity tariff, the President enlightened the Linden residents that both sides have agreed on a joint technical committee that will examine the issue in its totality and should be able to come up with a solution in about two months. The committee, the President said, will be reporting to the two sides periodically until it concludes its work which should see a solution being arrived at to ensure that everyone involved is comfortable.
The Head of State said that he and his administration wanted the situation to come under control a very long time ago and should not have reached the stage it did. The President said that the government and the other sides who have been meeting in relation to issues of Linden have been trying to meet a consensus on many, many issues but as those were agreed upon, other issues continued to pop up. He assured that the sides are still at the negotiating table and talks are continuing and it is the expectation of the two sides that things will be brought under control and eventually to an end very soon.
Mr. Ramotar made it clear to the residents that it is beyond the government to satisfy all the needs of all the people at the same since the resources for that to happen is not readily available to the state neither is it for the local private sector in the community. He said that it was with that in mind that he made the many concessions to the group he has been meeting with on behalf of Linden.
He said that the times that we are living in are difficult the world over and for there to be development in Linden and the rest of the country there needs to be a combination of all forces including the state and the private sector. However, he said that for it to be realized at a fast rate there must be investment.
The Head of State said that when it comes to that, it was that bit of reality that bothered him since Linden has one of the most grater advantages for investments that can help to develop the community and that development is projected to grow at a fast rate taking into consideration several reasons including: the location of the community, the infrastructure of the community and the fact that it sits on the cross roads to the interior locations.
Yesterday the President met with residents where several issues were addressed including the clarification by some of them of why they were locked out of the negotiations about the region at the ongoing meetings with the president and his team and the regional officials. They later found out that their Regional Chairman, Sharma Solomon and Regional Member of Parliament, Vanessa Kissoon were the ones who did not want them to be a part of the meeting.
During the several stops at the various locations where residents were assembled, some were not too willing to meet the President while others saw the opportunity to meet the President and apprised him of how the unrest in the community has been affecting their daily lives.
Other residents even assured the President that his security in the community was covered and that they “had his back” while informing him that had he travelled to the area earlier during the unrest he would not have been harmed since they would not have allowed their Head of State to be harmed by anyone.
The Guyanese leader informed the residents that discussions between his administration and the regional body are bearing fruit and the community should return to normalcy soon.
The President said that he did not want to travel to the mining town when the community was shut off and ordinary people could not move around freely and go about getting their business done. He added that he also visited the region because the roads are cleared as was stated by him earlier as one of his main conditions for visiting the troubled community because he wanted to talk with the people and as such he paid the visit to the area.
The Head of State told the Linden people that the shooting to death of three residents on July 18 was a personal pain to him, his Cabinet and the Government of Guyana as he expressed condolences to relatives and friends of those who died. Mr. Ramotar added that his government is extremely sorry for what happened.
He explained that he did not visit Linden on July 28 as planned because after his proposed visit was announced persons began to use the occasion to mobilise people to burn and block the roads. The President said that he did not want his visit to be used as an opportunity to have anyone getting hurt and which would have ultimately been used by those in charge of the protest action as a negative spin-off of the visit.
President Ramotar said that after the protest started and three lives were lost he immediately announced that he was suspending the July 1 deadline for the increase in the electricity tariff for the community and pulled it off the table.
He told the gathering that one of the many reasons he visited Linden yesterday was because the persons from the region that he has been meeting with have been reluctant to bring along the stakeholders to meet with him at several meetings that were ongoing and which were aimed at bringing an end to some of the issues that have been affecting the Linden people.
The President said that from the inception of the talks with the regional body he requested that a broad cross-section of the community be brought along to meet with him during the meetings with the regional chairman and persons he has been bringing to meet with the government team on behalf of the people of Linden.