Local government bodies equipped to provide better services

Local government bodies are now better equipped to focus on tasks such as enhancing cemeteries and improving community garbage collection.
This is according to Guyana’s Vice President (VP) and General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, who made the remarks during his weekly press briefing at Freedom House on Thursday.
Dr Jagdeo said this move is part of an effort to empower local government bodies, following numerous complaints from residents.
The Vice President recently met with a number of representatives from all Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDCs) and municipalities across the country, which led to a substantial increase in subvention to provide greater assistance in the execution of their duties.
“It is part of a bigger picture, a bigger plan to have the NDCs—local government bodies generally—play a greater role in addressing many of the problems we face in the community, where the regions and the Central Government can’t reach people at the household level. And so we’ve asked them to focus on a few areas, largely to fill the gaps where the region and the Central Government cannot intervene; namely in the area of small drainage and irrigation works in the villages, because there has been a big complaint from many of the villages and wards in the city and towns about the neglect of internal drainage systems,” he stated.
Dr Jagdeo added that while the government remains heavily focused on outfalls and water management, many internal drainage systems are clogged.
As a result, 66 mini-excavators were purchased and handed over to the local government bodies, with another 20 being procured for distribution to the remaining bodies.

“The increased subvention from $5 million per year to $30 million per year will allow the NDCs to have resources to operate the equipment so that they can provide better service to the areas under their control…. We’ve asked them to focus on upgrading the cemeteries and clearing the bushes… This is not a task for Central Government or the region. This is a task for the local government bodies. They’ve not been addressing this with diligence, and so we spoke last week, when I met with them at the Convention Centre, about the need to address this issue, and we gave them the resources to do so,” Dr Jagdeo said.
He further stated that local government bodies will also focus on garbage collection, which remains a major issue across the country.
In this regard, he noted that compactors are being procured. Local government bodies have been asked to identify areas to develop as landfill sites, following complaints about the high cost of transporting garbage over long distances.
He said a large sum of money will be spent working with them to ensure that communities have their own landfill sites.

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo (DPI photo)