Outreach wraps up
DPI, Guyana, Wednesday, March 27, 2019
As the successful Government Comes to You’ initiative wrapped up the Department of Public Information spoke to various ministers to garner their assessment of the day’s event.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Carl Greenidge, assessing the well-attended outreach said, “The public seemed to welcome the opportunity to meet with the ministers, and I suppose that is not surprising.” He noted that a few areas or ministries attracted more attention than others such as housing, roads and jobs. In his ministry’s case, the minister said there were some who were happy to meet him, some who knew him and were happy “to gaff” and others who had urgent problems and understood those would take time to resolve. He rated the response “as favourable overall.”
“The outreach was a chance to meet people with real issues”, so said Minister of Natural Resources Raphael Trotman as he gave his overview of the ministerial outreach. The minister was “enthused with the response” and added that he was “humbled to see so many people coming out to voice their concerns and voice their praise for what we are doing”. Many of those whom the minister met at his booth had to resolve issues of access to mining lands, mining permits and he acknowledged that there is still a “quite a bit of work to do.”
In terms of response, Minister Trotman said, he has set a time frame of two weeks to resolve those issues that persons sought assistance with, “some of them will be addressed within days but at the most, it will be two weeks.” More than 100 persons sought assistance from the Natural Resources Ministry and at least 40 were dealt with directly by Trotman.
Given the huge turnout, the Minster said it was a clear indication that more must be done. “Obviously the people need us to touch them in a more direct and personal way, so I’ll recommend that we do more of these exercises, on a regular basis. Not only in Georgetown but in other regions and districts as well.”
He disclosed that the Natural Resources Ministry will host its next mining lottery, tentatively, on April 10 at Port Kaituma and April 17 at Bartica.
Meanwhile, Minister of Citizenship Winston Felix noted that his department has been
The Ministry of Legal Affairs saw its fair share of persons, many of whom had various legal issues. The Attorney General Basil Williams SC said his staffers met persons and took their relevant information, offering legal advice. He described the activity as “a good thing.”
Giving his assessment, Minister of Finance Winston Jordan said that his ministry’s booth attracted more than 200 persons. He noted that at least 99 percent of the visitors left satisfied after meeting with his staffers on hand. He viewed the outreach as “a wonderful exercise and added, “I believe we will hold this again. Most of the thousands who would have left here today would have left satisfied, at least because they got to see a minister.”
He revealed that on April 5, the National insurance Scheme will be hosting an open house, at its Camp Street Offices, to meet the public and address their issues.
Paul McAdam.
Images: Marceano Narine.