By Nicole Telford- Region Ten Chairman, Mr. Deron Adams, is urging all Regional Chairman, Neighborhood Democratic Councils Chairman, councillors, mayors and town councilors, especially Those in the A Partnership for National Unity APNU strongholds, to continue moving through their communities and engaging with the residents.
During an interview with Village Voice News, Adams said the community engagements are needed to accurately identify and ascertain the types of infrastructure and developmental works that are needed to better serve communities in their respective regions. The Region 10 chairman said as for Linden,“We are in the budget cycle, the budget flows from consultation with the people on the ground, so their input for their community needs will be documented; the bridges, the drainage system we will document and advocate for all of the necessary issues citizens have raised during our consultations.”
The chairman said three of the pressing issues that he has on the top of his agenda for Linden is the need for a fire station at the Wismar Linden shore, the construction of a new primary school at Wisroc, and the completion of the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) Headquarters placed back into the budget.
Construction of a new RDC Headquarters commenced at Speightland in 2018 but funds were slashed from the 2022 budget. A fire report, following a detailed inspection of the building by the Guyana Fire Service, detailed that the RDC building falls below health and safety standards and was deemed a fire hazard, has several sewage leaks, is congested and has electrical defects. The forty-year-old building is situated on Republic Avenue, McKenzie, Linden and currently accommodates more than one hundred staff members.
Adams said the RDC will continue to agitate the issue of the Board of Guardians where many of the single parents in Linden have been removed from Public Assistance by the PPP/C when they came to office in August of 2020. “I had a call to address a situation with a guy who is blind-visually impaired- that was removed from the public assistance programme. I do not understand the guidelines the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security is following, but as leaders of Region 10 we will agitate until it is corrected to serve our community.”
Adams pointed out that residents in the riverine areas are being overlooked by the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government. “They’re senior citizens, an eighty-year-old man in the Berbice River who didn’t have access to his pension and when he queried from the PPP/C representative for the $25, 000 one-off cash grant he was denied that as well, but other PPP/C supporters in the area with similar issues were able to receive cash grants.”
The chairman added that “they are staff from the ministry who go into the Berbice River and sit in the boats and expect our senior citizens to navigate their way down to the landing to meet them to sign up for their monthly pension and if the citizens don’t reach the boat in time they drive away. This is unacceptable and a waste of our tax paying dollars.” Adams vowed to continue agitation to address this issue and ensure senior citizens are treated with dignity and respect.
Going further, Adams said he will continue to expose what is happening across Region 10 so that the world is aware of the PPP/C discrimination and the mean treatment meted out to old age pensioners who are disabled, live alone, without access to radio networks, social media access and some without electricity.”
The budget cycle starts in mid-August and ends mid-September yearly to facilitate government’s budgetary allocations and dispensation for communities countrywide over the coming year.
