A TOTAL of $261 M has been budgeted for a spanking new Region 10 Regional Democratic Council office and councillors and staff members on Wednesday decided that the building will be located in Speightland, Mackenzie. After much bickering as to where the building should be located, the councillors and staff made a unanimous decision on Wednesday at an extraordinary statutory meeting and voted on the building being constructed at Speightland while opposing other proposed sites at Bamia and Wisroc.

Councillors and staff voiced their agreement with the Speightland location, since it is more central to Linden’s economic hub and easily accessible to the employees and the thousands of residents who traverse the building to transact business on a daily basis.

Discussed at the meeting was the economic strain that will be placed upon the staff members if the building is placed at Bamia. Regional Chairman Renis Morian said that the councillors would have already made a decision to have the building at Speightland, since it is close to the river, to schools, the new passport office, the National Library, the Linden Mayor and Town Council and the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission.

“It must go down in record that this council made a decision and the decision is to take the building there. We come here today to reaffirm their (councillors) support to go there (Speightland). Councillor Charles Sampson argued that Region 10 is a riverine region and wherever it is placed, it must be accessible to all residents. ‘You have to put it in a position where accessibility is easy,” he reasoned.

A total of $39M was already paid to the contractor to commence the operations. The building will have a dimension of 260 ×60 and will be two storeys. The building that the RDC is currently accommodated in is more than 50 years old and has outgrown the number of staff members employed there. The current building also has a number of safety and electrical hazards that councillors would have been alluding to time and again. The new building has already been tendered for and construction is expected to commence before the end of 2018.