Residents across Region 10 (Upper Demerara- Berbice) are expected to receive 1,000 temporary jobs, an increase of 200 jobs than what was previously promised, Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo announced on Saturday.
Speaking to the beneficiaries at the Watooka Guest House, Linden, Dr. Jagdeo said this is the fulfilment of a promise made back in March when he made the announcement during an outreach there.
This forms part of the administration’s plan to subsidise household income in light of the rising cost of living.
Dr. Jagdeo explained that pre-COVID, Guyana lost some 35,000 jobs due to poor government policies under the APNU+AFC. Reference was made to the heavy taxation and the subsequent shut down of the country when the pandemic hit.
The Vice President further explained that this resulted in more jobs being lost, imposing significant hardships on Guyanese. In light of this, the PPP/C Government has revised its manifesto promise of providing 50,000 jobs, looking at other ways of creating employment.
“So, it’s going to be about 8,000 to 10,000 of our people hired through this initiative. They will get $40,000 a month for 10 days of work.
“It’s not free money, you have to work, but you don’t have to go into fields etc. Because we need a lot of people to assist in the hospitals. We need some persons in the libraries in our schools. We can place people in different agencies so they are doing productive work,” he told the large gathering.
Earlier this week, the Vice President announced that 2,000 residents of Region Two (Pomeroon- Supenaam) will receive temporary jobs. He initially promised 800 jobs there but a massive response saw about 2,500 Essequibians apply.
Meanwhile, Dr. Jagdeo, on Saturday, also called on the beneficiaries to use the programme as a stepping stone and to also take advantage of the Guyana Online Academy of Learning (GOAL) scholarships, to improve themselves.
Persons registered for the jobs and signed their one-year contracts to begin working in the new week. (Extracted and modified from DPI)