Guyanese have equitable access to all Govt programmes – Teixeira

Debunking accusations being flung the Government’s way by the political Opposition, Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Minister Gail Teixeira is emphasising that at the Government level, all Guyanese have equitable access to taxpayer-funded programmes.
In an interview on Global Indian Series podcast with Rajan Nazran, Teixeira took to the programme to address any misconceptions about the Government. One of those misconceptions she was asked about was the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) claims of discrimination.

“The country’s on the move. We have not solved all our problems. But there’s a mood in the country that we can change our lives. We can make Guyana a model of a developing country that is able to solve the inequities and disparities in the society between urban and rural and hinterland, between classes, between different religions or gender issues and stuff like that.
“These are the big-ticket issues and all the social programmes are geared at access and equitable access to the programmes. There is no programme (Guyanese are blocked from accessing). When the Opposition talks about apartheid, I think it’s just words they are throwing around that are emotive, because apartheid means institutionalised racism. And there’s no institutionalised racism in Guyana,” the Minister further explained.
Teixeira noted that racial discrimination has become the Opposition’s rallying cry to drum up support and according to her, it use it to gain the attention of the international community. According to her, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government is focused on ensuring Guyanese get equitable access to Guyana’s development.
“We don’t want to live in that world, where you’re dealing with the ethnic issue as if it’s the number one issue in Guyana. It is not. The number one issue is ensuring that our people have access to health services, to education, to jobs, to businesses,” Teixeira sad.
“Do our children have an opportunity to be able to go to get trained in university, etc ? And an opportunity for us to be able to create economic opportunities, including for investors, etc? But the idea of us looking at everything from an ethnic eye can be very debilitating, in terms of second-guessing everything we do.”
According to Teixeira, building trust with the people is an important issue. She said that the Government was seeking to do this through a number of measures including policies and ensuring constitutional bodies were functional and independent.
Last year, Guyana was favourably ranked on the Global Gender Gap Report 2022 produced by the Switzerland-based World Economic Forum, with the report listing Guyana at 35 out of 146 countries and second in the Caribbean for reducing gender inequality.
According to the report, Guyana received a score of 0.752. The report notes that Guyana’s score is a 0.024 improvement on its 2021 index score. Barbados, ranked at number 30 with a score of 0.765, was the only Caribbean country to be ranked above Guyana.
Meanwhile, Jamaica, which was ranked at 38 with a score of 0.749, was the next closest country. When it comes to the entire Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region, Guyana is ranked number six.
The report notes that in Guyana, men and women have near equal rights when it comes to access to financial services, as well as access to land and non-land assets. Meanwhile, there are equal rights to inheritances for widows and daughters.
When it comes to education and skills, there were only three categories where more men than women existed in the workforce. It was disclosed that 38.2 per cent of the workforce in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries and veterinary sciences are women, compared to 61.7 per cent men.
In Information and Communications Technology (ICT), 73 per cent of the workforce are men and 26.5 per cent, women. And in engineering, manufacturing and construction, 77.6 per cent of the workforce are men and 22.3 per cent, women.
However, in health and welfare, the report lists the workforce as 84.4 per cent female and 15.5 per cent male. In education, the workforce was listed as 88.5 per cent female and 11.4 per cent female. Business, administration and law had a 68.7 per cent female to 31.2 per cent male workforce, and in arts and humanities, the workforce was 89.6 per cent female and 10.3 per cent male.
The social sciences, journalism and information sectors meanwhile have a workforce that was 81.7 per cent female and 18.2 per cent male. And significantly less skewed was the natural sciences, mathematics and statistics sector, with 53.3 per cent of the workforce female and 46.6 per cent male. (G3)