-scores of issues dealt with by government ministers
Hundreds of residents gathered at the Watooka Guest House on Tuesday for a Public Day outreach hosted by Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, as residents engaged directly with government officials on matters affecting their communities.
The outreach provided Region Ten residents with an opportunity to raise concerns, seek assistance and receive updates on government programmes and initiatives.
Scores of issues were addressed during the engagement, including housing, land regularisation, infrastructure, contracts amongst others.
The public day outreach forms part of the government’s continued engagement with citizens across the country, ensuring residents can directly interact with policymakers and access support on issues impacting their communities.
A resident Patricia Bristol, described the outreach as successful, noting that many concerns raised by residents were either resolved or moved closer to resolution.
“We spoke with the vice president, and he gave us satisfaction and he gave us hope,” Bristol said.
She added that engagements with Ministers Zulfikar Mustafa, Susan Rodrigues, Ashni Singh and other officials provided clear guidance on land, agriculture and community development matters.
Bristol also welcomed assurances that training programmes for women and young people in sewing and tailoring would continue.
Retired Teacher Vanbruran Browne praised the initiative, highlighting the broad representation of government agencies at the outreach.
“I think it’s a bold step by the government. It’s a bold step to assist the people of Linden,” Browne said.
He explained that, “People have families, people have children, people need help, people need to move forward and develop themselves.”
Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, in a comment to the Department of Public Information (DPI), said the team of ministers and their technical staff spent all day listening to the issues and concerns of the residents.
“We started at 10 am and we just wrapped up and it’s 6.28 p.m. Now so we had a long day and I think a very successful day. We’ve Many issues and I think a lot of people will get help” he said.
Dr Jagdeo noted the government is committed to working to resolve all of these issues for people everywhere in the country, regardless of where they live, and the people of Region 10 are no exception.
“So, we will just continue doing what we are doing, which is keeping a focus on what matters most of our country and our people. We’re not going to be distracted by extraneous noise“, he mentioned.
He made the point that, “Sometimes the things that we work on yield results in the long term. So, they’re not as attractive as what some may propagate the short-term fixes. But It’s a long-term issues that matter most to the country because they create sustainable progress and wealth for our people and lead to a prosperous life”.
He explained that the emphasis continues to be creating the long term opportunities for people while focusing on fixing their short-term problems and issues.
“You just look at wages and salaries built in the public sector. It has gone up phenomenally. It means more public servants are earning literally over $100 billion more per year since today and since when we returned to office. Public assistance has gone up, pensioners have received increased fees. We have been giving, we’ve been assigning more money for the cash grants, billions…” he said.
According to the vice president, tens of billions have gone to people and they are getting assistance in the housing area immediately.
“Healthcare is another area that we’ve had a dedicated focus on. The infrastructure rolled out across this country. Huge projects, hundreds of billions of dollars. But People may say, oh, you can’t eat a road or a power plant or bridges, but without those, you can have sustained progress because the future wave of investments and future wave jobs and better paying jobs will come from those infrastructure that we’re investing in because it makes it easier to do that, to implement“, he said boldly.