Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo has asserted that various arms of government such as the judiciary and local authorities will have to be more accountable for their performances in the years ago.
Speaking about his party’s vision for the next five years if re-elected to serve, the General Secretary of the Peoples Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) has contended that “the justice system, and government, and police, and everyone, they all have to be more accountable”.
Jagdeo made the assertion during his weekly press conference on Thursday.
On the judiciary, he highlighted that the PPP/C administration has “increased the complement of judges” in the last five years and therefore “we expect to see also cases are heard faster, too many people are waiting for long time to have their cases heard and their lives are on hold”.
On the Guyana Police Force (GPF), he contended that “they need also in many areas to be more accountable to people”.
Regarding the functioning of local government bodies such as the Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDCs) and city councils, Jagdeo said many citizens across the country are dissatisfied with their performances.
“We’ve had a lot of complaints…right across the country,” he noted.
Jagdeo reminded that these bodies have recently benefited from higher subventions and can look forward to more resources in the years to come, and therefore, they must perform better.
“They have to do a better job at doing the things they are equipped to do and are mandated to do,” Jagdeo contended.
He referred to the Georgetown Mayor and City Council, noting that it fails to maintain basic city infrastructure and services such as road repairs, drainage and irrigation and even garbage collection.
In this regard, Jagdeo assured that the next PPP/C administration will be holding these bodies more accountable.
“Holding local government bodies more accountable for doing basic things in serving the communities would be an important part of the next five years,” he said.
Earlier this year, every NDC received $30 million as their new annual subvention while every municipality received $50 million as their new annual subvention.
Previously, NDCs got subventions of about $5 million, while municipalities got about $18 million.
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