Govt’s focus on ‘plantain chips and cook-up rice entrepreneurs’ misplaced – Jagdeo

Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo has expressed his disappointment in the current Administration’s approached to job creation – which on the campaign trail leading up to the 2015 General and Regional Elections had said it will be creating employment for young people.
The Opposition Leader’s expression of disappointment was made while addressing hundreds at meeting at Rose Hall, Berbice over the weekend.
He said while President David Granger has been encouraging youth to become plantain chips and cook up rice entrepreneurs, this is not what many young people would have envisaged as their careers when the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Administration took office.
At the time of his address, Jagdeo was just a few buildings away from where President Granger was just over a week ago when a Berbice youth ask him to speak of Government’s plans for jobs for young people. The President in response then said youths should not look toward Government to provide jobs for them. He urged that they create businesses, saying Government has been providing grants for persons to start up their own businesses. According to Granger, there is great potential in the cook-up rice and also plantain chip retail business.
“The possibilities of employment with the Government are limited but the possibilities of self-employment are unlimited. When you ask what are the job opportunities and about the brain drain, I tell you that you don’t have to run and leave because this is the land of promise and opportunities. Young people must learn to go out and create jobs and there are so many possibilities here in East Berbice, anytime you go by the Bridge [Berbice River Bridge] you see people with these big laundry baskets selling plantain chips. That is business, don’t laugh at them,” the Head of State said.
Jagdeo praised the President for admitting that the Government has no jobs to offer young people. He said most Corentyne parents will not want their children to become plantain chip entrepreneurs.
“What do we say to our children after you work hard and send them to school and to university and they get qualified? How do we say to them that they have to go and sell plantain chips on the street side? We want jobs in oil and gas for our children. We want jobs in Information and Communication Technology, in agro processing, in the most advanced services in the environmental sector, in eco-tourism, in hotel management; that is what we want for our children so that they can make more money so that they can live a better life,” the Opposition Leader said.
Jagdeo who was at the time speaking to residents of the town about Local Government Elections (LGE) said before polling day persons need to know about the parties which are in the race.
At the last LGE, there were 16 Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDCs) and three towns (New Amsterdam, Rose Hall Town and Corriverton) in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) in which they contested.
The People’s Progressive Party (PPP) won 14 of the NDCs, APNU one and the two parties had a tie at the Gibraltar/Fyrish NDC.
APNU won the town of New Amsterdam with the other two towns going to the PPP.
However, Jagdeo noted that in the Hog/Lancaster NDC which was won by APNU and New Amsterdam property taxes were increased by 100 per cent.
“They won only two of 19 areas in Region Six and in both areas that they won in 2016, the people who voted for them say their taxes go up by 100 per cent. In the areas that the PPP won, we made it clear that wherever we win we are not going to bring additional burden additional hardships to people. That is a Party’s policy. So any where we win no taxes will be increased, Jagdeo told Rose Hall Town. (Andrew Carmichael)