[www.inewsguyana.com] – President Donald Ramotar has assured that his government is doing all it can to curtail the soaring migration of Guyanese which has impacted Guyana’s declining population growth.
He said his Government is committed to building and strengthening the local economy and implementing various social programmes as it has done over the past 20 years so as to offer Guyanese citizens a better quality of life.
He is hopeful that in so doing, this will hopefully stem the issue of migration. He was at the time responding to questions about Guyana’s population decline as reported in the preliminary results of the 2012 Census.
The preliminary results of the Guyana population and housing census, which commenced in September 2012 by the Guyana National Bureau of Statistics (GNBS), recorded a marginal reduction of 3,339 persons with a the population count of 751,223.
When asked about the factors that contributed to this decline, Chief Statistician and Census Officer Lennox Benjamin explained that migration continues to be the major factor in this regard.
He recalled that the country’s population had peaked in 1980 and has never been able to regain that level despite increases in birth rate.
“The net migration factor remains the biggest influence,” Benjamin stated.
President Ramotar pointed out however that this is an age-old issue that began in the 1960s and continued into the 70s and 80s. He explained that in many cases the families of these “economic migrants” were divided, and when the opportunity presented itself to reunite, they chose to do so in more developed societies.
He reminded too that is this issue is by no means unique to Guyana; however, the Government can only work to further development the country, as it has been doing in an effort to curtail migration.
“What is of note is that we do not have migration because of political persecution and political violation of people’s human rights, those are the things that are most important for me,” the Head of State said.
You are very wrong my friend. There are two major factors, pull and push factors. Pull factors include having relatives in the developed countries, hope of better earning etc and push factors are too numerous to mention but include inability to earn a livable wage, high crime like you said, poor security, poor education system, no or little access to justice, inadequate healthcare, lack of economic development(no real job creation), inefficient public institutions, inordinately high taxes, police harassment, customs harassment, poor public infrastructure, declining societal morality and so on and so forth. It is not just limited to crime. Crime is the least of our worries and has become an acceptable norm in Guyana. The question of where your next meal for your child will come from is more pressing than crime!
I’m a New York based guyanese, and from what I’ve learnt the major factor that contribute to migration is the crime situation in guyana. The police force in guyana has proven incapable of dealing with crimes.
you cant enjoy walking the streets..you cant enjoy being in your own home..you cant enjoy having a business..all of those out of fear from killer robbers.electricity cost killing the small people..food price is another tormentor .. government cant protect its people then they have no other choice but to see a better life elsewhere