-as new well nears completion

Ninety percent of residents in central Baramita, Region One, will soon have increased access to potable water, as works progress as planned on a new well.

The well is being drilled by the Guyana Water Inc. with community participation for the laying of the distribution network.

Residents were informed of this new development during a community meeting at the Baramita Community Skills Traning Centre, with Parliamentary Representative or Reg. One and Housing and Water Minister, the Hon. Collin Croal.

The Minister was accompanied by Hinerland Service Director, Mr. Ranchand Jailall; Regional Chairman Mr. Brentnol Ashley; Matarkai NDC, Chairman, Mr. Orlando Thorne and other regional officials.

Currently only fifteen percent (15%) of residents have access to potable water. The new well is being drilled in the vicinity of the airstrip, opposite the old well site. This project is providing employment to a number of villagers, as they will be laying the pipes for the distribution network and service connections.

“We have a mandate to deliver potable water to every community, currently only 50% of Region One has direct access to potable water and another 25% of the region is without and we are working with fix this.”

As such five new wells will be drilled in the Matarkai Sub-region, within the coming months, including, Matthews Ridge, Central Port Kaituma, Oronoque and Arakaka.

Meanwhile, Minister Croal also used the opportunity to speak on the government’s overall development agenda for Region One.

“We want to work together to better the image of Baramita, too much negative news has been coming out of this community but we are committed to erase that and ensure that development comes to this community.”

The Minister stressed, that policies made at Government level will and must be filtered to every unity of irrespective of geographics.

“Programmes we implement have to be filtered to every region for implementation, including Health and education delivery but without proper management at the village council level communities will not see the full benefits,” the Minister said as he called on village leaders to be more responsible in managing resources.

“Your leaders are required to manage the resources allocated in the best interest of the commmunity, you have a responsibility to ensure that the decision they make are beneficial to the community, and they are also required to hold frequent meetings to update the community on what they are doing,” the Minister reiterated.

Also residents took the opportunity to raise a number of issues affecting their daily lives including fencing the primary school compound and the need for improved health service among others. A commitment was made by the region’s Parliamentary Representative to forward the issues to the relevant sectoral ministers.