…AG tells Diaspora in Antigua as he lays out govt’s first term successes
…urges them to return to ‘green, green grass of home’

ATTORNEY-General, Basil Williams on Saturday evening laid out the coalition government’s successes while in office to a large Guyanese audience in Antigua and Barbuda. And, thanking them for their contributions to the country, he also urged them to return to the “green, green grass of home”.

Williams is on the island for the 50th Plenary and Working Group Meeting of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) in Antigua, which opens today. “I know that many of you have left Guyana for various reasons; some to seek greener pastures, others to enhance your education and professional experience,” he began. “I assure you that the government which I represent values your contributions. All of you in some way or the other would have contributed, and still contribute, to our people’s well-being.

“I look forward to you returning to the ‘green, green grass of home’. Our country is perched for economic transformation, and I want to assure all of you that regardless of your political affiliation, you will be welcome,” Williams told the Diasporan meeting.

FIRST TERM
Giving an overview of the government’s performance thus far, Williams told the gathering that Guyana is about to head into general and regional elections; that it has made tremendous progress over the past five years, and that there is demonstrable proof of its achievements over this period. “Your government has established a model of inclusionary government.

The PNCR founded a five-party coalition known as A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), and then joined with the Alliance for Change (AFC) to establish the APNU+AFC coalition, the first time that such a broad-based and credible coalition had contested elections which it won in May 2015,” he said. “We have shown that inclusionary democracy can work, and how it is best suited for our multiracial society.

Your government openly embraced political inclusion; we made no excuses, like others have done, about the need for building political trust as a precondition for political inclusion. We believe and we have shown that the best way to build trust is by working together, and we have done this with our coalition partners,” Williams told the Guyanese on the island.

According to Williams, the government has also restored good governance; that they have dispensed with the rogue governance of the past which spawned a carnival of violence and extra-judicial killings, cronyism, nepotism and corruption. “We have restored sanity and credibility to government. We have ended the nightmare of drug wars, extra-judicial killings, death squads and massacres,” he said. “We have restored peace and calm to our nation, and we are promoting social cohesion, so that our peoples can live in peace and harmony,” he told the audience.

LOCAL DEMOCRACY
Turning his attention to local democracy, he said the APNU+AFC coalition government has restored local democracy, in that local government elections were held for the first time in 2016, and then again in 2018 after a hiatus of more than two decades. Noting that citizens all across Guyana were able to elect their representatives of their choice, Minister Williams said: “Local government elections have revitalised local communities.

Villages once dormant and sleeping are now coming alive. Village economies are being revived.
Four new towns have been established: At Bartica, Lethem, Mabaruma and Mahdia. These towns have been designated as capital towns; they will be expected to drive the development of their respective Regions.” He said local democracy is leading to urban revival and village renewal, as communities are being encouraged to develop their own village improvement plans to boost their development.

TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY
On the important issue of Guyana’s sovereignty, Williams told the Diaspora that the coalition government has protected the Motherland and defended its territorial integrity and sovereignty. “We have been successful in having the Secretary-General of the United Nations refer the territorial controversy between Guyana and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the International Court of Justice (ICJ),” he said, adding: “This controversy has bedeviled our nation for more than 53 years; it has impeded our development. We are confident of the rightness of our case, and the eventual affirmation by the ICJ of the 1899 Arbitral Award.

A ‘frontline villages’ policy has been unveiled to ensure the safety of residents and the development of frontier communities that are guardians of our territorial integrity and protectors of our national patrimony. Our Defence Force is being recapitalised. The Guyana People’s Militia has been reestablished and decentralised to ensure a presence in all ten administrative regions, thereby allowing for more rapid response, especially in the event of natural disasters.”

Only last week Foreign Secretary Carl Greenidge told a forum at the University of Guyana that Venezuela has up to November 28 to inform the ICJ on its participation in the oral arguments on whether the court has jurisdiction to hear the case filed by Guyana – Arbitral Award of 1899 (Guyana v Venezuela). In a presentation to the law students, the foreign secretary said Venezuela has until Thursday, November 28, 2019 to inform the ICJ whether or not it will be putting forward oral arguments on the court’s jurisdiction to adjudicate the matter. The oral hearings will be held in The Hague from March 23-27, 2020.

The hearing will determine whether the court has jurisdiction over the case filed by Guyana on March 29, 2018. By so doing, Guyana seeks to obtain from the court a final and binding judgement that the 1899 Arbitral Award, which established the location of the land boundary between then British Guiana and Venezuela, remains valid and binding, and that Guyana’s Essequibo region belongs to Guyana, and not Venezuela.

Although contending that the ICJ lacks jurisdiction to adjudicate in the matter, Venezuela has failed to submit its Counter-Memorial on Jurisdiction, in response to Guyana’s Memorial on April 18, 2019, a date which was fixed by the court. Nonetheless, the Spanish-speaking country still has an opportunity to contribute to the process, but it must first indicate its willingness to do so by November 28. The foreign secretary said if Venezuela indicates to the ICJ that it will not submit oral arguments, the case will go on unhindered. “Whether or not Venezuela participates, I wouldn’t put it as being immaterial, but it does not frustrate the work of the court. The work of the court will proceed, whether or not they participate,” Greenidge told the law students.

PUBLIC CONFIDENCE
Meanwhile, Minister Williams told the Diaspora meeting that public confidence is being restored in our police service. He said that the government, ever mindful of the need to improve human safety, started the reformation and retooling of the security sector. He made reference to the United Kingdom-funded security sector Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that has been negotiated, and is being implemented with direct oversight from the highest office in the State. “Rogue cops are being removed from the jobs; promotions are now based on merit, and greater accountability is being mainstreamed,” AG Williams said.

On the economic front, he said economic growth has been sustained over the past four years, noting that growth over the years 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 were 3.2%, 3.4%, 2.1% and 4.1% respectively.

“We are reversing the financial mismanagement which left the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) bankrupt, the rice industry hobbled, and the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) reeling from involuntary indebtedness,” he reported.

He said the government has put behind it a series of inherited infrastructural scandals, scandals such as the shoddy construction of the bridge at Moruca and revetments at Kumaka in the Barima-Waini Region; the stelling at Supenaam, in the Pomeroon-Supenaam Region; the bridge at Hope in the Demerara-Mahaica Region; the sugar factory at  Skeldon, in the East Berbice-Corentyne Region; the secondary School at Kato in the Potaro-Siparuni Region; and the fibre-optic cable project in the Rupununi Region.

He said investment is increasing and generating new jobs, and that the Guyana Office for Investment in 2018 alone processed some G$89.4B in investments; investments that are expected to result in the creation of 1,644 jobs when fully operational. “We have improved public services wages. The minimum wage of public servants and teachers increased by over 70 per cent, or from $ 39,400 to $ 70,000.

This year we have granted a 9% increases to public servants on the lower salary tiers. Corporations have benefitted from the reduction of the corporate tax rate for manufacturing and non-commercial companies from 30 per cent to 27.5 per cent.  The value-added tax (VAT) was reduced to 14 per cent and the VAT threshold increased from $10M to $15M,” Williams told the Guyanese in Antigua.

EDUCATING THE NATION
The Attorney General said education is being accorded the highest priority, noting that more than G$170Bhave been expended on education over the past four years. “Expenditure on the public education sector moved from 14.8 per cent of the national budget in 2014 to 17.0 per cent in 2017. This year, 2019, we are spending $52.2 B on education, up from the G$ 31. 8 B expended in 2015, an increase of 64%. The Public Education Transport Services is providing buses, boats and bicycles to allow our children to get to school in all ten of our administrative Regions. PETS has thus far deployed 27 buses, 10 boats and 4,000 bicycles to assist our children in attending school.

PETS is saving parents money; in some cases the savings can be as high as $48,000 per month per student – money which can now be funnelled into improving the household.”
According to the AG, next year, the government will launch a Decade of Development 2020-2029. The ‘Decade’ will accord the highest priority to education. “It will ensure that there is a school in very village so that children do not have to travel long distances to get to school. The Decade will allow for the emergence of a world-class education system with campuses in each of our Regions.”