VP confident of PPP/C performance in government, elections

…says party will win the 2025, General and Regional elections, but not taking things for granted

On Saturday, Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo, engaged residents at Numbers 48 Primary School, Numbers 64 Village, Linepath and Crabwood Creek in community meetings, to discuss the government’s progress and elections, as well as to listen to issues affecting the communities.

Jagdeo said that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic will win the 2025, General and Regional elections. However, the party is not taking things for granted.
According to the Vice President, the PPP/C has a robust record of fighting for freedom and without that freedom Guyana would have been a different place. Jagdeo said had the PPP not returned to office Berbice would have been a dead place.
“Because the sugar importance was the primary source of income in most homes – from the taxi drivers to the hairdressers to the shopkeeper – because if the people were not earning they could not spend, it was not just sugar that the assault was against, it was also the rice industry- by putting taxes on machinery and equipment and on pesticides and fertilizers and saying that rice is private business. So, there was an assault on rice. There was no job creation effort in this region but also in other regions. Other regions suffered enormously including regions that they [the then APNU/AFC government] controlled. Thousands of bauxite workers lost their jobs in Region Ten,” Jagdeo said while at Number 48 Village.
Speaking about the previous administration, he also pointed out that hinterland communities were affected, as hundreds were relieved of their jobs by the then government. Additionally, some 4,000 sugar workers lost their jobs and two sugar estates were closed in Berbice.
However, since returning to office, the party has resuscitated two of the estates and more than 2,000 persons are now working there. Additionally some 4,800 persons have been given part-time employment by the government in Region Six, Jagdeo noted.
According to Vice President Jagdeo, thousands of new jobs will be provided, with a projected investment in the region which includes the establishment of a deep water harbour and a new high span Berbice River Bridge, which will be toll free and will allow for containers to arrive and be shipped across the bridge, toll free.
Jagdeo in a brief message said it is important that people know what has been done by the current administration and what plans there are for the region, because too often people judge the government’s performance based on what they hear, regardless of where the information is coming from, and many times it is coming from the opposition.
He pointed out that since coming back to office the PPP administration has been on a scale of development that is unprecedented.
The former Head of State also used the opportunity to listen to concerns by residents. He noted that when persons raise issues, the government does not view it as an attack on its own, as an attack on the government.
“When people stand up an a community meeting that the PPPC holds, and they raise an issue affecting their community, we don’t see that as a criticism of our party. We see that as an opportunity to resolve things that might be affecting the community,” Jagdeo who is also the General Secretary of the PPPC said.
Among the issues raised at the four meetings include the need for electricity poles in some communities, the need to have some communities zoned for housing, a need for better service at the Skeldon Hospital, leakages in Guyana Water Inc.’s mains, and the poor state of some post offices.
The National Insurance Scheme was also an entity which many residents needed intervention from high offices to have their issues addressed..
Some also spoke of difficulty communicating with foreign doctors at the hospital, drainage and irrigation issues in their community and issues at their local NDCs.