Home Top Stories Look for a party that exhibits trust, competence, empathy – Jagdeo tells...
General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), Bharrat Jagdeo has called on voters slated to cast their ballots on June 12 to think of a party with a track record of trust and one which is competent and exhibits empathy.
These qualities, he stated, should be considered before voting at the Local Government Elections (LGE). He was at the time addressing party supporters during a meeting at Corriverton, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), on Saturday evening.
He made reference to the former A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance for Change (APNU/AFC) regime which accused the PPP/C of lacking competence and vision.
“They had all the plans for the development of Guyana. They made promises to miners and the farmers and the sugar workers and the pensioners and the children and a lot of people believed them, especially young people who had not known about that history.”
However, according to Jagdeo, who is also the Vice President of Guyana, those promises were never fulfilled but instead disrupted the lives of Guyanese.
“In the five years, they didn’t double old age pension forget the 100 days and the five years nothing happened. In fact, what they did was they took away the free water that the pensioners had. So they have clearly demonstrated that they could not empathise with people, especially pensioners… The same thing with children; for that matter, you should never steal from our children and that is what they did – they stole from our children. The children were getting $1.67 billion with a $10,000 grant they claim they could not afford but they increase the budget for food in Government for Government officials by over $2 billion a year but could not afford $1.6 billion to keep the grant for our children.”
30 school buses
“Granger got 30 buses donated and he then put his name David G on them and deployed them to a few communities but if you multiply $1.6 billion per year by five years, they stole $8 billion from our children. That is how much they have stolen. With $8 billion you could have bought 1000 buses.”
On the other hand, Jagdeo pointed out that the PPP, since regaining office in 2020, has reintroduced the “Because We Care” grants.
“We will increase it to $50,000 per child and that’s going to be paid out shortly and now we have extended it to the private. All the children we have in the private sector not just if you are going to Government schools but even if you’re going to private schools. Any Government who can steal from your children and they didn’t steal from Indian children alone they stole from Amerindian children and from mixed people children, from Afro Guyanese children. They stole from all of our children…”
“I am telling you all of this because you need to understand that when you make a promise to people, they must first of all believe the promise and then secondly trust you to deliver on their promise and there is only one political party that makes believable promises and has had their track record to deliver on its promises and that’s the People’s Progressive Party.”
As it relates to its trustworthiness, he said the PPP/C has already fulfilled about 90 per cent of the promises it made in its 2020 elections manifesto.
“I want you to know that every promise that is made here for every town or the NDC that the People’s Progressive Party will stand behind them… all the roads in this region (Region Six) would eventually be fixed, every single road and the streets,” the General Secretary committed, as he urged persons to support and believe in the party.
He further noted that already, 500 community roads in the region have been rehabilitated and before the end of 2023, another 300 will undergo rehabilitation.
Jagdeo also took the opportunity to reiterate his party’s calls to vote sensibly in the upcoming elections while adding that PPP/C will stand by residents to ensure that the Councils deliver.
“We will stand by these Councils. If they’re messing up, we will force them to act in your best interest. We made it clear that for all the towns we want their meetings live stream so that people can see the discussions that they have in these areas so you can follow what is happening there so that they will be accountable. So, on June 12, you are voting to safeguard your community and your children from fake promises and negative vibes, and division. It all rests with you in your hands and your people have all the power; the political parties can only carry the message but you have the power to make this happen,” the General Secretary said. (Andrew Carmichael)
