–home-improvement subsidy programme to be rolled out in communities
–committees to be established for greater engagement between residents and the government

SEVERAL infrastructural and social welfare development programmes are on the cards for the residents of Laing Avenue and Yarrow Dam, including a $50 million home improvement subsidy that will be distributed to assist residents in “fixing up” their homes.

This was according to Vice-President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, on Monday, when he held community meetings and conducted a walkabout along two streets in Georgetown, meeting with residents and listening to their respective concerns.

The Vice-President said that the visit was part of a promise made during the recent campaign for the Local Government Elections (LGE).

“Prior to the elections, I promised a group of people who came to see me a Freedom House that I will return here after the elections. I promised them that I wanted to start a home improvement programme.

“We’ve have set aside $50 million for the home improvement programme. So, we’re here to fulfil that promise,” Dr. Jagdeo said at the first meeting that was held at the corner of Laing Avenue and Cemetery Road.

He said that the meetings were just the beginning of the government’s plan to do its part to ensure development in those communities.

“We’d have ongoing engagements, this is not a one-off engagement. We have to work continuously until we have development in these areas. So, we will talk a bit about how we will pursue that [housing subsidy] programme and the mechanism through which we will do it,” Dr. Jagdeo said.

During his remarks, Dr. Jagdeo addressed residents about the need to set up committees within the communities to manage negotiations between the government and the residents.
He was accompanied on the visits by Minister of Public Affairs, Kwame McCoy; Minister of Labour, Joseph Hamilton, and Head of the Guyana Online Learning Academy (GOAL) Scholarship programme, Dr. Jacob Opadeyi.

A number of the Georgetown Councillors from the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) were also present including Patricia Chase-Green, Alfonso De Armas and Steven Jacobs.
Minister Hamilton and Dr. Opadeyi were there to begin organising committees in the communities to offer training and scholarships under their respective initiatives. The Ministry of Labour does training under the Board of Industrial Training (BIT).

The Vice-President reminded that there are several areas where Guyana is currently desperately in need of human resources, and he encouraged any resident not involved in a training programme or who wants to develop their skills to get involved.

“I said I’m going to bring in Minister Hamilton, who is responsible for training young people, in skills training. We need a lot of people trained for the oil and gas sector and many other industries, those jobs can be very high paying.

“But we need to get people to organise themselves and I was promised by a group that you can bring the young people together, young men, young woman, all of those who want to be trained, and then we can work on a training programme.

“We can get skills like carpentry, welding is a badly needed skill, also electricians and that sort of training. Because we’ve the building boom now taking place in the country we need a lot of those areas. I said I’ll also bring Professor over there who is here with me. He runs the GOAL scholarship programme for us,” Dr. Jagdeo said.

During the engagement, residents were also given the chance to speak with the Vice-President about their individual issues. A lot of persons raised concerns about issues related to the Guyana Water Inc. (GWI) and Guyana Power and Light (GPL).

Residents also requested that more programmes focus on assisting senior citizens and single mothers.

At the meeting held at Yarrow Dam, residents spoke about the need for drainage, land titles and business grants.