Major focus to be placed on rehabilitation of community roads -VP Jagdeo

Following the 2023 Local Government Elections (LGEs), the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) government is placing more emphasis on enhancing the standard of living for ordinary Guyanese.

Speaking at a press conference at the Office of the President on Thursday, Vice President, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, said a number of community issues were highlighted on the campaign trail for LGEs, and as such, implementation of additional works to improve the lives of Guyanese at the community level will resume.

“We’ve gone back into the important things that we found on the campaign trail. A lot of people raised issues, and roads are a primary concern of most of the communities. The roads to schools and hospitals are priorities, and those must be fixed now. So, we are just refocusing the entire government after the hiatus of the campaign on the things that matter to the people,” he said.

To this end, billions will be spent on a number of community roads across the country, in addition to those outlined in the 2023 budget.

Some $1 billion will be expended for community roads to be done in Essequibo, while $1.6 billion in roads will be done in Linden.

Further, $1 billion has been set aside for community roads in Region Nine.

VP Jagdeo added, “In Region One, we are going to complete the part from Santa Rosa going up to the school, and we have decided to do about 2 kilometres of road in that sub-district. It is about $1 million per kilometre in concrete roads.  We have asked the Ministry of Public Works to ensure that people in these regions will be employed to do the work.”

This initiative will be duplicated in every region of the country. Dr Jagdeo highlighted that promises made during the campaign period will be upheld by the People’s Progressive Party/Civic government.

“I want to assure people that these promises will be kept, notwithstanding the fact that we did not win Georgetown or New Amsterdam, or Linden. The results from a party perspective have been phenomenal in these areas. We are encouraged by these results,” the vice president noted.