Return to the “green, green grass of home”
─ AG Williams urges Guyanese in Antigua
─ “We have restored peace and calm to our nation”
DPI, Guyana, Monday, November 25, 2019
Attorney General (AG) and Minister of Legal Affairs, Hon. Basil Williams, SC has once again sounded a call for Guyanese in the diaspora to return home, sighting the economic boom that is about to take place.
Meeting with Guyanese in Antigua on Saturday evening, AG Williams outlined the enormous successes of the Coalition Government and the ongoing transformation of the country. He encouraged the Guyanese to return to their homeland.
“I look forward to you returning to the ‘green, green grass of home’. Our country is perched for economic transformation, and I want to assure all of you that regardless of your political affiliation, you will be welcome,” the minister said.
The Attorney General shared facts about Guyana’s return to local democracy through the restoration of Local Government Elections (LGE), inclusionary government, through the birth of the coalition, restoration of good governance, and the protection of Guyana’s Sovereignty.
“We have restored sanity and credibility to government. We have ended the nightmare of drug wars, extra-judicial killings, death squads and massacres,” he said. “We have restored peace and calm to our nation, and we are promoting social cohesion so that our peoples can live in peace and harmony,” he told those present.
He also spoke of the special focus being placed on education, by His Excellency, President David Granger and the government; and noted that the sector is being accorded the highest priority, with more than $170B having have been expended on education over the past four years.
“Expenditure on the public education sector moved from 14.8% of the national budget in 2014 to 17.0 per cent in 2017. This year, 2019, we are spending $52.2B on education, up from the G$ 31.8B expended in 2015, an increase of 64%. The Public Education Transport Services is providing buses, boats and bicycles to allow our children to get to school in all ten of our administrative Regions. PETS has thus far deployed 27 buses, 10 boats and 4,000 bicycles to assist our children in attending school,” the Attorney General related.
Minister Williams is on the island attending the 50th Plenary and Working Group Meeting of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF), which opened today.