Region Five poised for greater development – REO dismisses naysayers

DPI, GUYANA, Thursday, January 18, 2018

Regional Executive Officer, Mahaica-Berbice, Region Five, Ovid Morrison today said the region is poised for greater development this year drawing from the experiences of 2017, where approximately 99 percent of works slated were completed.

Ovid Morrison, Regional Executive Officer, Region Five.

The REO, speaking on the sidelines of the Action Roundtable for Regional Development 2018, said much was accomplished in 2017 particularly in the areas of Health, Education, Infrastructure, and Agriculture.

“We have established two Health Centres with modern facilities. The Mahaicony Hospital we renovated two emergency operation rooms so that we would be able to not only cater for the citizens of Region Five…but also we can extend services to our neighbour region, Region Six should there be any difficult condition.”

He noted that there were massive upgrades to roads, schools, markets and bridges in all 10 Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDCs) in the region.

The upgrading of Farm to Market Road at D’ Edwards, the rehabilitation of Masjid Street, Rosignol, and the construction of a footbridge between Number Four and Five villages are some of the works completed in the region.

In addition to the $4M allocated to each NDC, over $660M was also expended among these NDCs for developmental works.

According to Morrison, sums were expended for extensive drainage and irrigation works, given the fact that Region Five is flood prone.

This was deemed a worthy investment since it resulted in the water receding in a short time, bringing relief to affected residents.

Despite the false claims that continue to be perpetrated by some NDCs, Morrison assured that development is taking place and will continue this year in that region.

“Persons criticise …some communities the politics that they play say that they haven’t been [developing] I have available detailed funding of programmes that we did in each of the 10 NDCs so nobody can deny that.”

He also said that the Agriculture sector will receive the necessary boost with a focus this year on scientific techniques to improve the way farming is done.

“To let our people, understand, when you’re talking about agriculture, do not see it as a stigma, see it as something scientific. If you see if scientific you would then understand land selection is key to increased production and then crop rotation is very important to reducing diseases of your crops,” the REO explained.

By: Stacy Carmichael

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