Stabroek News
April 27, 2001

President Bharrat Jagdeo wants the present engagement with PNC REFORM (PNC/R) leader, Desmond Hoyte to continue beyond the consideration of the issues now before them.

And he told reporters yesterday at a press conference at the Office of the President that he had the full support of the PPP/Civic (PPP/C) for the agreements he had reached with the PNC/R leader.

President Jagdeo said that he had been meeting Hoyte as President of Guyana and would brook no delay in the implementation of the agreements they had reached. "I have five years to deliver a better life to all the people of this country. I am in no mood to mince words and to go back and forth."

President Jagdeo stressed that he wanted to move forward as rapidly as possible on the areas agreed with Hoyte, pointing out that many of the issues had been agreed during the life of the last parliament. He added that many of the issues raised in the discussions covered areas about which he had been speaking at the meetings he held in the communities he visited since the elections.

But he stressed that there were other areas to which he had to give attention such as attracting investment, expanding health care and other social programmes.

He said that as President, he had a mandate to address all issues but had raised with Hoyte the questions of the condemnation of violence, the lessening of tension and protests and recognition of the government which had been addressed in the inaugural session on Tuesday.

He said there was a number of areas in which he hoped the opposition would become engaged, such as the resuscitation of the rice industry and the modernisation of the sugar industry. "In fact I was very happy that the opposition wanted to be part of some of these very important things for the country."

The President said that during their two meetings he had informed Hoyte of his position on the issues he had raised, citing, as an example, the political neutrality of the public service. He said he had stressed that it was in his discretion to name the Head of the Presidential Secretariat, which had been acknowledged. But he said his view was that once they both committed themselves to a politically neutral public service then issues such as wages and salaries and had to be negotiated between the employer and employees and not by politicians.

About some of the areas on which agreement had been reached, President Jagdeo contended that the government had done a lot to reduce the level of poverty in the country. But he said that with the resources freed up through the implementation of the enhanced Highly Indebted Poor Countries programme, the government would try to address depressed communities such as the Buxton Backlands, Chesney, Toko, Bush Lot, Amerindian areas, Linden and Plaisance.

Speaking generally about his discussions with Hoyte, he stressed as he did on Wednesday that the meetings were productive and that he wanted to look at institutionalising them, so as to keep the momentum.

He said he would hope for an ongoing engagement between the government and opposition as there were hundreds of areas on which they could work together and contribute ideas such as to the Poverty Reduction Strategy and on which some consensus could be arrived, including economic issues.

A raft of areas have been agreed on between the two leaders including committees on the resuscitation of the bauxite industry, house lots distribution, border and national security issues and joint management of parliamentary business.

They are to meet again on May 2.