Her love for community development led a then 19-year old Sandra Adams to join the Young Socialist Movement in 1989. She got involved with the community group working mainly in the One-Mile Wismar area in Region 10 (Upper Demerara/ Upper Berbice). Her work there led here to stand for elections on the PNC list in 1994 for the Linden Town Council.
She was elected and served for three years before standing, again on a PNC ticket, for election to the Region 10 Regional Democratic Council (RDC) at the 1997 elections. She was again successful and entered the National Assembly having been elected to represent the RDC in the National Assembly. With the change in the electoral system for the 2001 elections, she was directly elected as a regional parliamentarian for the region. She and Abdul Kadir, who was featured in the June issue of Current Affairs, are the two regional parliamentarians from Region 10.
In the seven years since she has been a parliamentarian, Adams said that she has found the experience at times exciting but most times frustrating as the government neglects to look at issues which cry out for attention. "There needs to be a more serious approach to issues concerning the welfare of people and which have a serious impact on their lives."
She yearns for the day when the PNC returns to office and she can have the experience of sitting on the government benches.
In the National Assembly, Adams is a member of the Assembly Committee that is concerned with ensuring that the Assembly is properly provisioned to conduct its work. Unfortunately the committee has yet to hold its first meeting. She said that the PNC's Chief Whip has raised the issue and has been told that once the PNCR returns to the parliament the committee would begin to function!
One of the bees in her bonnet is the institution of Wednesdays as a day when opposition members' business takes precedence as provided for in the Standing Orders as her party is unlikely to succeed in raising them as matters of urgent national importance.
She explained that there are a lot of regional issues that need to be debated and guidelines should be issued to the regional authorities.
As a consequence she says that her interest is basically in legislation which concerns the regions and she believes that there is a pressing need for a law that would overhaul the administration of funds in the regions. She says that under the present system the regions have to rely on the Ministry of Finance and the Sub-Treasury which results in a lot of frustration and the regional administration being blamed, as is the experience of the Region 10 administration.
She recalls a recent case where payment could not be made in a timely manner to a contractor who carried out some emergency drainage works.
The upshot was that the regional administration was blamed for the delay which was not of its making. She said that the delays caused have led to frequent friction between the administration and its staff as well as with contractors.
Adams said that the government needs to restructure the procedures between the central government and the regions.
Another area of concern, again drawing on her experience from Region 10, Adams said is the award of contracts, some of which are awarded by the region and others by the central tender board.
She said those issued by the central tender board cause problems most of the times as they are awarded to contractors from outside Linden resulting in the funds not remaining in the Linden area. She says that the contractors bring in workers with the same skills as those that could be found in the region.
Another source of discontent, Adams says, is that almost half of the contracts identified by the government turn out to be white elephants. She points to the abattoir on the Wismar shore. She says that there are not enough cows in Linden to warrant such a facility.
Another she says is the building put up at Ida Sabina in the Berbice River to house a police outpost, clinic and residence for the police stationed at the outpost which remained empty for almost five years until a Medex, and a policeman were posted there as a result of agitation by her party comrades in the region.
She said that it is a central government project that nobody wanted as it is sited at a location residents in the vicinity describe as a "cow tiger place".
Commenting on the stipend paid to parliamentarians, Adams said that the recent allowances paid to parliamentarians "has made it...a little possible as before the allowances were introduced it was totally inadequate."
However, she says that the regional parliamentarians ought to be provided with office space in the region, some secretarial assistance and transport.
She says that it is inconvenient having to deal with people in the streets who stop her to seek some advice or assistance in addressing a problem they have. She said that it is an issue that the opposition has been raising for some time and she thought that by now the government would have begun to get things organised for the regional parliamentarians.
About her relations with her colleagues across the aisle, Adams described it as good as she says that they have become accustomed to her heckling. She recalled with some amusement being requested by the Speaker to hold the chair and his admonition that while she is doing so she cannot indulge in any heckling.
Adams who was born and bred in Linden attended the One-Mile Primary School and McKenzie High School between 1980 and 1986.
After leaving secondary school, Adams said that she did some trading before joining Linmine as a chemical analyst.
She then moved to Banks DIH Linden branch where she was cook, counter girl and cashier.
She left that job to become the PNC's regional supervisor from 1995-1998 when she was elected its regional chairman. She resigned the post in 2001 when she opened her own business, Scorpio Transportation which has a fleet of 10 buses that ply between Linden and Georgetown.
She has two sons 15 and 12. The elder of the two attends Wisburg Secondary and excels at basketball and football and is a member of the Guyana Youth and Students Movement. The younger will be attending Silver City Secondary School from September. He is wavering between managing his mother's business when he is older or studying medicine.