A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) Region Nine’s Parliamentary representative, Sydney Allicock, yesterday in his presentation to the 2013 Budget debate castigated Rupununi as the “most backward place in the Caribbean.”

Allicock, as he sought to denigrate the 2013 Budget in a plethora of contradictory statements, said that Lethem has demonstrated significant growth in recent years but sough to create the impression that there were no jobs in the locale.
The APNU Member of Parliament said that while there are consultations held with the people of the region and the administration these were not “proper” and accused the administration of having no comprehensive plan.
According to Allicock, while each year the schools in the locale produce on average 135 students, many continuously fail their examinations.
He did concede that with the construction of the new school at Sandcreek in the region, the amount of persons passing through the education system will be revised upward.
Allicock told the House that there are some 65 Amerindian communities in the Rupununi  but the pass rate among the students was dismal.
“They have no future,” said Allicock, who condemned the education system as giving no second chances.
Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh, in his budget presentation last Monday, had announced that under the administration’s ICT strategy, computer data banks will be established in each Amerindian community across the country while laptops under the One Laptop per Family Programme will be distributed.
Allicock yesterday, however, suggested to the House that the Rupununi students are “at great risk”  in this “the age of globalisation and fast paced information system.”
The APNU Regional MP also called on the administration to establish a technical institute in the Region but Education Minister Priya Manickchand, in her rebuttal, told the House that Allicock was being less than candid.
She said the proposal of a technical institute in the region has been in the works for some time now, something that the APNU Member of Parliament should be aware of.
Minister Manickchand said that any relatively well informed resident of the region is aware of the proposals and called on Allicock to support the more than $1.5B that is in the 2013 Budget for Technical and Vocational Training across the country.
In further response to Allicock’s appeal to reject the 2013 budget, the Education Minister reminded the House that there is another $1B  in the budget specifically under the School Feeding Programme, thousands of which are located in the Region Nine area.
Manickchand said that for Allicock to vote down the provisions in the Budget,  it would be tantamount to telling the students in Region Nine that they don’t count.
While conceding that there is a state-of-the-art hospital at Lethem, the MP castigated the budgetary allocations for the sector despite the fact that the Education Sector allocation is budgeted to receive the second highest tranche of the $208.8B budget.
“Very, very inadequate,” said Allicock and told the House that APNU “cannot and will not support this document (2013 Budget)”.
“We need a Hospital that will serve all classes of injuries and sicknesses,” said Allicock even as he, a few minutes later, recounted the incident involving Alliance For Change (AFC) Chairman Nigel Hughes who was successfully treated in the interior region and subsequently medivacced to the Capital City.