PNCR Leader Brigadier David Granger met scores of villagers to listen to the problems affecting their communities during a ‘walk-about’ in Ann’s Grove, Two Friends and Dochfour villages on the East Coast Demerara.
Villagers reportedly expressed their concern about rising unemployment and the dysfunctional public education system which is producing an unmanageable number of dropouts.
Granger was told that many villagers were small miners who worked in the Cuyuni-Mazaruni Region. Several of them complained about having been systematically ‘shaken down’ by rogue policemen and harassed by armed retainers of rich miners. Many have been driven away from their claims and are now unemployed. Three villagers were killed in a mining accident at Aranka earlier this month.
According to a press statement from the PNCR, villagers also raised a wide range of local concerns – including poor drainage, bad roads, lack of adequate street lighting and lack of proper sporting and leisure facilities for young people – in their historic community.
The PNCR leader remarked that the Central Government and Regional Administration had roles to play in alleviating the villagers’ distress. He appealed to residents, however, to organize themselves to save the environment by preventing the dumping of bottles, plastics and Styrofoam into canals and the dumping of garbage along the roadways.
Granger challenged the youth of Ann’s Grove and Two Friends to mobilise, organise and collectively develop proper playing fields in the community. The PNCR Leader was accompanied on his village walk-about by Chairman Demerara-Mahaica Region Clement Corlette, Guyana Youth and Student Movement Chairman Christopher Jones, and Regional Councillors.