MINISTER of Local Government and Regional Development, Mr Ganga Persaud reported on Monday that the ministry is satisfied with the overall pace of implementation of the regions’ 2013 work programmes, though a few regions have been slow-moving.
Budget 2013 was approved at the end of April, and time had to be allotted for such activities as advertising, awarding of contracts for the projects, and mobilisation of contractors.

“Conscious that all those activities had to be undertaken and each  of them would have required their own time limit, because of their sequential activities…we, as a ministry, were unable to actively commence implementation at the ground level until about mid July…from mid-July to now, we have just completed about two-and-a-half months of our implementation cycle, and so our humble judgment is that we would have achieved great accomplishments,” Minister Persaud was quoted by the Government Information Agency (GINA) as having said.
With regard to the regions that are lagging , Minister Persaud revealed that over the past two weeks, the ministry has sought to meet independently with each region. Involved in these meetings were the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) and the programmes heads.
During the meetings, he said the ministry reviewed each of their planned, budgeted tasks to determine the state and stage of implementation, and to identify factors that affected smooth implementation. He said that having had dialogue and discussions on all the various elements, new guidelines and strategies were accepted by the regions.
Minister Persaud said that since last week, when the ministry met with the last region, there were progressive movements in the right direction with regard to the implementation of the programmes. He said the ministry is hoping that by the end of October, most of the regions’ current and a significant number of the capital programmes would have reached the point of nearing completion.
He said the ministry is confident that most of the projects will be completed, with a few roll-overs.