SINCE the naming of Lethem as a town and the holding of Local Government Elections (LGE), the Rupununi Savannah, which is home to about 7,000 persons, has been on a progressive path of development.

Looking back at this year, Carlton Beckles, who is the first mayor of Lethem, said he is thankful that the President David Granger-led administration saw the need to establish the village as a town.

The move was a part of the President’s vision that every region must have a regional capital which can help to ‘trigger’ economic activity and development.

The A Partnership for National Unity/ Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) coalition’s resuscitation of the holding of LGEs has created a structure in which central government does not bear the burden of administering to every community and neighbourhood in the country.

Prior to 2016, LGEs were not held in Guyana for more than 20 years. The hosting of the elections have enabled representatives in villages and towns to deal with issues at the grassroot level and this has done wonders for Lethem, which was declared a town on October 20, 2017.

“These townships are meant to be capital towns; capital towns with the aim of giving guidance to the region. It means that whatever is being done here, at the level of the township, is supposed to transform the region in terms of development,” Beckles said.

He added: “Being the first mayor, it was no easy task because when we got into office after the Local Government Elections, what I found is that Lethem hadn’t any street lights.”

That was the beginning of the journey for Beckles, but today, Lethem has over 280 street lamps.

Lighting up the streets of the new town marked one of the first projects embarked upon by the Town Council.

The former major recalled that 50 of the lamps were provided through the Town Council; 100 from the Lethem power company through the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) and 132 from the Ministry of Communities.

Upon taking up the position on the council, Beckles said he and other members were met with a revenue base of $25,000 to $30,000 monthly coming from the Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDCs).

They also had little to no office equipment and no staff available.

INCREASED REVENUE COLLECTION
“When I would have demitted office, I left with a revenue base in excess of $3M per month and those revenues were garnered right here by initiatives that we would have come up with from the council,” he said.

In a push for projects to turn the town around, the council wrote to the Ministries of Public Infrastructure and Communities, requesting repairs to deplorable roads in the town.

“The minister sent in a team here – I was a part of the team – and we did a mapping [exercise] where we identified 7.2 kilometers of road to be done within the township,” Beckles said.

He added that presently, 4.2 kilometers of the area identified is being transformed into a four-lane road, though previously planned to be a two-lane road, thanks to Public Infrastructure Minister, David Patterson.

Another project for which plans began under the first council is the construction of a Lethem Town Hall.

Beckles told Guyana Chronicle that while he is no longer mayor, construction works for the project commenced and the project is expected to be completed within the next six to eight months.

Another project is the building of a fire station in the town. That project is 95 per cent complete and soon staff will be recruited.

The council also purchased a 26-tonne capacity garbage truck and a 30-seater school bus from revenues collected in the township.

“We decided to do that project because of the cost to get children to school from here. If you had a child going to St. Ignatius School, you would have been required to pay between $3,500 to $4,000 a week,” he said, noting that today, they pay far less.

The former mayor added that the David Granger bus donated by the President through his ‘Five Bs’ initiative is also assisting with transportation and is free of cost.

The Lethem Municipal Market was also upgraded and this has since increased the level of interest in famers and vendors to occupy the space.

“When we got in there, there was very low occupancy. I think only three stalls were occupied in the market, now there’s an improvement in the occupation of stalls,” the former mayor said.

Several recreational areas were also developed such as the Declaration Park, the Mayflower Children Park, the Tabatinga Sports Complex Ground, the Tabatinga Community Ground and the Culvert City Ground.