“Mobilise to ensure PPP/C’s return to office” – GS Jagdeo tells Berbice

…warns of APNU’s institutional discrimination

General Secretary (GS) of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Dr Bharrat Jagdeo on Sunday told supporters in Berbice to ensure they mobilise in the lead up to September 1 General and Regional Elections so that they can deliver the largest victory in the region for the party. Speaking at the PPP/C’s massive rally at Albion Estate Road, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), Jagdeo highlighted the unprecedented development that Berbice and the rest of Guyana has seen and experienced over the last five years. He said no other political parties contesting the upcoming polls have anything to offer Guyanese.
To this end, he urged citizens to ensure they mobilise in the coming days to ensure that the PPP/C can return to office and continue the developmental trajectory it has undertaken especially across Region Six.
“So, please be careful. Go to every community. Make sure that you remain mobilised. We have about 40 days remaining. I want you to live, sleep, eat PPP for the next 40 days. We have work to do. We have to get back into Government. We haven’t been able to complete everything we wanted to the last few years,” the PPP/C GS stated to the more than 30,000 supporters who gathered in Albion on Sunday. Promising more to come for all categories of citizens, Jagdeo declared, “In the next term for people in Berbice and across the country, we have to ensure they get more jobs, better paying jobs. We have to ensure that the rice farmers and the sugar workers get support. We have to make sure that we get more loans to people who want to start small businesses in every one of your villages. We want to make sure that we have street lights and security cameras to fight against crime. We want to do concrete drains. We want to make sure that our communities are secure. We have to pick up the garbage better… We need to fix a lot of things in the future, but only one party can do that, and that’s the People’s Progressive Party.”
Jagdeo, who also serves as Vice President (VP) in the current PPP/C Administration, told Guyanese to think about the state the country would have been in had his party not been in office over the last five years.

APNU’s Institutional discrimination
He reminded that, after failing to deliver to citizens during its tenure in office and lying to them, the People’s National Congress (PNC)-led A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) can no longer come to Guyanese with any promises.
“They can’t say anything. That is why the turnout at their meetings are so low because their supporters, as well as ours, recognise that the PNC, no matter what they promise – the AFC and APNU, they will never deliver on those promises,” the PPP/C GS stated. Jagdeo went on to point out that there is a deep-seated discrimination in the PNC-led party of the people in Region Six. This, he added, was demonstrated in their actions while in Government during 2015 to 2020 when they said rice is a private business and then closed sugar estates in the region resulting in workers being placed on the breadline. Since returning to office, the current PPP/C has reopened one of the estates in Berbice – Rose Hall, and rehired thousands of sugar workers there. But, Jagdeo warned, there is an even more sinister plan now afoot in the APNU camp.
“I want to talk about something that has always bothered me historically, it seems that deeply seated in the APNU is a prejudice against Region Six. Somehow, they believe that because it’s a PPP stronghold, they must make no investment in this region. Never mind they get a lot of support from Region Six, like in New Amsterdam and many villages. Rose Hall estate was closed. They sent home 7,000 sugar workers. But if you think that was in the past, at their [campaign] launch…one of their speakers said, ‘we will shut the sugar industry down and grow marijuana on the land’. That’s not 2020, that’s not 2015, that is a couple of weeks ago,” Jagdeo emphasised. He added that even the 4,500 part-time workers currently employed across Berbice are also under threat, with APNU already indicating that they would be fired should the Aubrey Norton-led party get into office.
“There’s an institutional discrimination in the PNC and APNU against people who live in Berbice. So, whether you’re from New Amsterdam or Liverpool or Manchester or Port Mourant or Albion… or Chesley or Black Bush polder, or anywhere else in this region, you have to understand what is at stake here, and that only with a PPP Government can this region make progress,” Jagdeo declared.