Georgetown: With Local Government Elections (LGE) a month ahead, Communities Minister Ronald Bulkan emphasised that although this election demands great expenditure, it signifies a venture in good supremacy and admiration for the citizens of Guyana.
This pronouncement was made in the National Assembly during the Budget 2016 debates. According to Bulkan, there will be 71 councils with the new philosophy of support from Central Government that will dictate the affairs of bodies within the local government.
“Catastrophe conditions which currently characterise towns and villages will be replaced by community revitalisation, in which people are permitted to practise their legitimate right to administer and develop their areas. The fresh approach to community management, he stated, will see partnership, not partisanship, respect not a desire to dominate,” Bulkan stressed.
According to Bulkan, each administrative region should be prepared to accept challenges offered by the Government and begin to take more tenure of their areas. He explained regions must guarantee that natural and other resources are being used to exert a pull on investments, contribute to raise the standard of living, improve the quality of life, create jobs, and implement development.
The Communities Ministry in collaboration with Finance Ministry, along with other local and foreign agencies and groups will provide support to administrative bodies in the development of programmes, known as a Plan of Action for Regional Development (PARD).
He stated one such programme that was funded was the Canadian Funded Caribbean Local Economic Development Initiative (CARILED), which will be updating the development for six municipal plans, and which will also see the involvement of new councils when they are formed.
Local Government Elections are set for March 18. Local Government Elections were last held in 1994, though the constitution stipulates they should be held every three years.
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