SEVERAL ministers of the government participated in a walkabout and information-sharing activity around downtown Georgetown on Wednesday, when they were also able to listen to the concerns of residents.

The team included senior and junior ministers of Social Protection Amna Ally and Keith Scott; Minister of Communities, Ronald Bulkan; Minister of Public Affairs, Dawn Hastings-Williams; Junior Minister of Public Infrastructure, Annette Ferguson and Junior Minister of Finance, Jaipaul Sharma.

The ministers assembled at the Parliament Building and each, in the company of supporters of the coalition, took to the streets. “We’re out here to hear the concerns of the people, but this is the first time we did it in a group. As ministers, we work in our own constituencies and do our own work, but they were surprised to see us in a group,” said Minister Sharma after the walkabout.

“What we shared basically was information about budget 2019,” he added. “The book was an excerpt of the budget and, along with that, there was a flyer with President David Arthur Granger showing some of his qualities as the President of Guyana.”

Sharma said that persons were given a list of the President’s qualities and accomplishments, so that they can weigh for themselves his record against the other options presenting themselves. Also on the walkabout were Mayor of Georgetown Ubraj Narine and Deputy Mayor Alfred Mentore.

Narine said: “The exercise this afternoon was fantastic. I love the people and I interacted with them and I found that there are a lot of issues; but we’re going to regularise things and they pledged to support the council and to work with the council.”

He added that many of the persons were excited to meet their new mayor.

Meanwhile, Mentore said that such interactions with the public are necessary for the City Council to better understand the people they want to serve.

“This is not the first of the walks, we had one last Friday. We went to the Bourda area and we were able to figure out a number of the issues that are affecting the various vendors and the various people within the market,” he said.

“Most of the people who have met the mayor and met myself in general, they are very welcoming. They like the fresh approach, they like the freshness of us coming out and bringing the council to them rather than them coming to the council. So we want to reach them, we want to have that kind of relationship; that one-on-one and we want to be able to engage them a lot more, so that we can have a greater collaboration moving forward.”

Speaking with the Guyana Chronicle, Minster Scott agreed that the presence of the mayor and deputy mayor had indeed excited the interest of the people.

“It was very good and I was very impressed with the reception that the Mayor of Georgetown got, because everybody was happy that he interacted with them; they were very free in giving their observations and their complaints as well. He’s a young man with a very good future,” he said, adding: “They were very free with us also and told us their concerns and complained about the treatment they got at the last City Council.

They said that this time around they’re prepared for betterment. They also said that they are very resolute in their support for the APNU+AFC and they are resolved to ensure that not only they are registered, but that their families are also registered. They are very happy to get the flyers and they are happy, also, that they’re seeing us on the ground and we promised that we’ll always be close to them.”