As many Guyanese continue to face unemployment due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the government on Tuesday said it will be creating a minimum of 500 jobs. As a result, some 100 contracts were signed between small businesses and the Ministry of Public Works to clean-up communities along the Coastland.
The majority of the contracts were awarded to small businesses which are managed by a family or at least three persons. The simple, yet significant event, was held at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre.
Minister within the Ministry of Public Works, Deodat Indar stated that the government has recognised that small businesses have taken a great hit due to COVID-19 and some have even closed down.
“People just did not have work and very few areas presented the opportunity for people to have work, more so small businesses. Small businesses have been taking a beating during the pandemic,” the Minister said.
The contracts were signed after a bidding process to clean up sea defences and roads in communities in Regions Three, Five and Six along with a few hinterland communities.
Minister Indar said the contracts will last for two months -November and December- and will employ a minimum of 500 persons.
Additionally, the majority of contracts were also signed by new contractors. The Minister further explained that the government received over 600 bids but only 100 met the criteria.
“The evaluators had to go through all 600 to make sure that they were in line with what the evaluation criteria was; we had to check them and recheck them and we made sure that big businesses did not benefit from this,” the Minister said.
The business owners were urged to do a proper job in order to secure their position for future contracts.