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Nov 30, 2014 AFC Column, Features / Columnists
By Moses Nagamootoo
A new day will dawn in Guyana once elections are held. The Alliance For Change is confident of a win, and ready
to head a new government.
The AFC is now a clear choice to the old parties. We are leading in support from all corners of Guyana, from all races and classes; all ages, all genders. AFC is the fresh, vibrant, popular party. The AFC Government will represent all the people of Guyana, more especially our young people.
Guyana needs decent and honest leadership. A quick end must be put to corruption and waste of public funds. Guyana does not deserve another minority, PPP term. No way!
The AFC believes in better quality and efficient delivery of services to our people, in the education, health, housing and security sectors. But the important issue at hand is how to grow and expand the economy. We will secure the livelihood of our people on the Coast, with policies that address their needs. But we will cast our vision beyond the Coast, to the savannahs, the interior, where the beauty and the untapped resources lie. Our plans, our vision will bring jobs, security and stability.
After the elections, we will partner with all patriotic forces. We will develop and continue workable, beneficial programmes, especially those that promote clean air, and a green economy. But we will review and re-assess those that are not viable or have failed, or would fail. The latter are the projects that were born in corruption.
We will reinvigorate and change the national development agenda. We will focus on what will bring quick relief to the jobless and the working poor, and help the vulnerable. Our strategy will be guided by the revised and expanded party’s Action Plan, which is a work in progress.
In addition, the AFC will incorporate the national development strategy and the poverty reduction strategy paper into a united, integrated approach to development goals and priorities.
We have noted concerns, in the face of massive brain drain and general migration, about whether we have people who could run government agencies. We have a capable and highly motivated team to assume Government. We are also compiling a data bank of persons of quality, who are highly qualified, skilled and trained, to occupy leadership in all key areas of planning, development and administration.
COMPREHENSIVE PLAN
Our new government will pursue a comprehensive plan to create new and decent jobs and economic opportunities. We will change and improve our relationship with foreign investors, secure better terms and, together with our patriotic capitalists, we will place attention to:-.
· Enterprises that create value-added goods and services.
· Wood processing and furniture making, using our own logs, rather than exporting them.
· Power supplies to manufacturing entities from co-generation and agro-energy mainly from the waste from sugar cane.
· Ethanol production for an E-10 policy (10% ethanol in every gallon of petrol).
· Train and upgrade cane cutters to operate machines at a better salary with better working conditions. Cut and load must end!
· Equitable agrarian reform and distributing land for farming and animal husbandry. Put an end to land-grabbing by foreigners and allocation of best arable land to PPP cronies.
· Direct export of rice/paddy by millers and work with world experts to create new rice products markets for packaged rice, rice cereals, rice cakes, rice noodles, instant rice, rice pasta etc.. These endeavours will create 3,000 new jobs in the rice sector.
· Boost alcohol export of our world class rum to bigger markets.
· Produce sugar-cane based bio-chemicals in cosmetics and detergents.
· Produce bio-plastics using local resources. .
· Outfit all Primary and Secondary schools with fully functional computer laboratories with internet connectivity and train our children so that they can move from being only users of software to developers of software.
· Encourage computer assembly plants in Guyana, to create in excess of 2,000 new jobs, and to expand role of information and other technologies for a new economy.
· Train new apprentices at Regional Mechanical & Electrical Workshops, including facilities in Amerindian locations, to create hundreds of new jobs in the shortest time.
· Work with lending agencies to provide apprentices with seed financing to develop new small business in areas such as auto and heavy duty repairs, welding, bodywork, electrical work, air conditioning, plumbing etc.
· Put unemployed poor to work by creating Parks and Landscaping units to collect and re-cycle waste, upkeep existing parks and create new playgrounds for the children in our communities.
· Establish a Fisheries Surveillance and Enforcement Coordination Committee to help the fishermen combat high sea piracy.
· Boost fishmeal production for Livestock Industry, and make, designate and develop new areas for Livestock Development.
· Put resources into agricultural tourism / eco-tourism around tropical farms.
· Partner with off-shore energy prospectors to expedite new oil/gas industry.
These are only a very few specific areas from our Plan that should give our people hope, that Guyana could move away from stagnation.
The AFC Government will review all infrastructural, capital projects to ensure that these employ Guyanese skilled and unskilled labour, and are relevant to Guyana’s needs and stage of development. Moreover, we will keep a tight lid on our national debt which, at some G$380 billion, could become unsustainable, and could eat up monies that should go to the people.
IMMEDIATE RELIEF
To bring immediate relief to our people and for job-security, the new government will:-
· Reduce VAT.
· Reduce personal income tax for workers earning below $100,000 monthly, and review corporate taxes.
· Provide income tax allowance for every child.
· Guarantee allowance to an affordable limit for safe delivery of baby other than in a state hospital.
· Consider incentives for gold miners to sustain industry and ensure that the 90,000-plus workforce is protected.
· Reduce toll for Berbice Bridge crossing for mini-buses & hire cars to $1,000 per crossing.
· Re-professionalise the public service, and end starvation wages by making a 10% increase across the board and make subsequent wage adjustments subject of periodic, collective bargaining, and further increase income tax allowance.
· Increase old age pension to a minimum of $15,000 per month.
As regards our governance system, the AFC is committed to post-electoral coalition of the willing, and will work to:-
· Hold Local Government Elections soonest.
· Put on the national agenda comprehensive Constitutional reform to whittle away the tyranny of the Executive.
· Establish the Public Procurement Commission, and constitute all other bodies that are mandated by the Constitution.
AFC has a plan and, WE READY! Are you?
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