— Housing, pensions, land disputes, contracts among major issues addressed

HUNDREDS of residents on the Essequibo Coast yesterday received on-the-spot interventions as Vice-President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo led a high-level Cabinet outreach to Region Two, bringing key government agencies directly to the people to address long-standing concerns relating to housing, agriculture, pensions, cash grants, land disputes, and access to small contracts.
The Vice-President told the gathering that technical teams from the Ministries of Agriculture, Housing and Finance, along with agencies including the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) and the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission (GLSC), were all on site to deal directly with residents’ concerns.
He urged persons to first engage the technical officers before approaching him personally, in an effort to speed up the resolution process.
A major focus of the outreach was housing, with Jagdeo announcing that nearly 4,000 house lots are currently being developed in Region Two.
The outreach also targeted persistent land and boundary disputes on the Essequibo Coast, with the Vice-President acknowledging frequent complaints involving property lines and leases between neighbours.
He encouraged residents with unresolved land matters to make full use of the presence of senior Lands and Surveys officials to obtain clear written positions on their issues.
NIS, PENSIONS AND CASH GRANTS
Residents with National Insurance Scheme pension concerns and other benefit-related queries were informed that a full NIS team, including the agency’s head, had travelled to Region Two specifically for the outreach.
“There’s a whole big team, five persons from NIS with the head of NIS came here today too, so they can solve your issues, or at least give you a position on a matter,” the Vice-President explained.
He added that issues surrounding cash grants could also be addressed by officers stationed at the venue.
Turning to small government contracts, Jagdeo disclosed that approximately 12,000 persons across the country had been pre-qualified through an online exercise conducted over the past three months, as government moves to broaden participation among small contractors.
He said the pre-qualification list was being rigorously “cleaned up” to remove cases where multiple members of the same family had registered separate companies, a practice he warned could create perceptions of political favouritism.
“We’ve opened up the list of pre-qualification, as you know for the past three months, we have been urging people to get prequalified online… 12,000 persons across the country got pre-qualified. We’ve been cleaning up the list… because sometimes three four members of one family have applied in different companies and if we give all of them and others don’t get them, people think it’s a party, they blame the party, but we don’t know who’s been doing this,” he said.
The Vice-President confirmed that the first set of contracts had already been awarded from the pre-qualified list, but reassured those who were unsuccessful in the initial round that additional opportunities would become available before the end of the year.
“The first set of contracts have been awarded from the prequalified list… but others who are on that prequalified list, they don’t have to worry, because there will be many other rounds before the end of the year of new contracts… so if you pre-qualify, and you didn’t get anything in the first round, most likely you will get later in the year,” he stated.
However, Jagdeo warned that persons who missed the pre-qualification process would have to wait until the next national call.
“If you miss the pre-qualification… We can’t open up that list, you have to wait until next year when we advertise again for pre-qualification,” he cautioned.
He clarified that the pre-qualification requirement applies mainly to small contractors, noting that larger contractors can continue to tender at any time.
“These are for small people… the larger ones can tender at any time, even now… you don’t have to worry about being pre-qualified for that, because you can tender at any time,” he said.
During interactive sessions, the Vice-President also outlined a priority system to ensure that elderly persons, women with children, and other vulnerable residents were attended to first by ministers and technical officers.