President Granger promises greater progress

SIGNALLING that the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) Government will have a second term in office, President David Granger said Guyanese can expect greater progress in the coming years.
He said since entering office in May, 2015, the coalition Government had been making significant strides in cleaning up the mess that was left by its predecessor – the People’s Progressive Party (PPP).

“The efforts that we have made over the last 18 months have been phenomenal, in terms of trying to make Guyana a law-governed country and to introduce due regularity into government’s business,” President Granger said, while speaking on his weekly televised programme – In the Public Interest.
He said his Administration has the Herculean task of cleaning up the “mess” left by the PPP Administration, alluding to the controversial fibre-optic cable project and the ailing sugar factory.

The bungled Brazil-Guyana Fibre-Optic cable project, which started in 2011 under the PPP, was designed to improve internet access in the country and for the setting up a database hub for all government agencies.
However, in June 2015, Guyana was faced with an accumulated US$76,000 debt for internet connectivity, although the country at the time was unable to benefit from the project. The project had absorbed millions of taxpayers’ dollars.
However, since then, the APNU+AFC Government has managed to put the network into operation. In fact, the Government has connected and provided secure, controlled internet access to over 140 locations.

With this level of inter-connectivity, the ministry has equipped 86 secondary schools, three Regional Education Offices (REO), three Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE) branches, two University of Guyana (UG) locations, and six technical and vocational institutions with reliable, high-speed access to educational content in their computer laboratories, and has advanced the effectiveness of law enforcement.

The Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo), on the other hand, has been operating at a loss over the year, due to tumbling global sugar prices and the corporation’s inability to reduce its cost of production; hence, the need for government bailouts. In December 2016, the Agriculture Minister Noel Holder had said that the corporation would require $18B in 2017 and an additional $21B in 2018, if its operations were to be continued.
But the problems left by the PPP Government are not just limited to GUYSUCO and the fibre-optic cable, but include corruption in public offices and a security system that leaves much to be desired.

President Granger said while his Government has been putting the necessary systems in place, there were still corrupted persons in the system.
“Some of the persons who have been corrupted by that period of the troubles, public servants for example, members of the law-enforcement agency are still around and we are dealing with those problems on a daily basis,” he pointed out, while adding that “some of the so-called administrative problems are legacies of the previous administration.”
Moving ahead, President Granger said Guyanese can expect positive growth and development.

“The Guyanese public can look forward to a much-improved quality of governance by the time we come to the end of our first tour of duty.
“In the second tour of duty, I think we would see faster movement once we would have cleared up the backlog of cases we would have inherited from the PPP Administration.”