By Stacy Carmichael-James
President David Granger is contending that the performance of his administration must be measured in the context of what was inherited from the previous government when the Coalition took office in May 2015.
The President who was speaking during the recording of the Government programme “The Public Interest” this morning (Thursday, April 6, 2017) defended the performance of his administration thus far. Granger admitted that his Government has numerous hurdles to overcome in the sugar, public telecommunications, infrastructure, education and other sectors.
These, the Head of State contended are not faults or errors of Governance that came about in the last year or two, deeming them as “historical faults.” He noted that “I am not trying to blame the other administration but these are matters that we are dealing with, the education situation is critical, we know we have to strengthen teaching at the Primary level with more students passing at the National Grade Six. We have to strengthen the system of distribution of pharmaceuticals in Public Health, remove the problems of bottlenecks as well as the problems of incompetence and corruption.”
The President expects that by the year 2018 the situation would improve and Guyanese would begin to see the benefits of the changes the coalition has made in the various ministries.
Apart from the internal shifts and the creation of new ministries, President Granger said there were no dismissals and according to him these adjustments have improved the performance of his cabinet in some areas, which he admitted, were not given the necessary attention.
” When we got in we did not expect that the discovery of petroleum would be so massive and therefore I had to ask Minister Trotman to pay particular attention to that field and I removed Environment under him and in the case Public Telecommunications ….you know we are in an information age and we’ve had to make some changes in the Information and Communications Technology area and I think those moves have been for the good of the cabinet,” said the President.
Granger said the public would have to be the judge. But while the Head of State has made these statements regarding his cabinet, the Opposition People’s Progressive Party continues to bemoan what it deems at the poor Governance by the Coalition, which it maintains, would only bring further hardships to Guyanese.
Opposition Leader and PPP General Secretary, Bharrat Jagdeo when asked how he would rate the APNU+AFC’s performance had given the administration an “F.”
The economy according to the Opposition continues to be a sore area.
