As her tenure draws to a close, outgoing Mayor of Linden, Waneka Arrindell believes that the foundation has firmly been established for the incoming Council; as the present body has made several strides in moving the Linden Town Council forward from the position it was in three years ago.
Mayor Arrindell told the Department of Public Information (DPI), many of the issues, including dealing with millions of dollars of debt as well as an internal system that needed much strengthening, have been dealt with collectively as a Council. As she prepares to demit office, Arrindell is very proud of this fact. She described her nine months tenure as purpose-driven with several solution-based initiatives coming to fruition.
Many of the successful initiatives benefited the administrative aspect of the Council and the municipality at large, including improved garbage collection and aesthetic enhancement of the offices; her very own signature project – the Junior Mayor programme. This initiative, one that Arrindell has personally invested in has received positive feedback and continues to gain momentum amongst Secondary School students.
“That project has been my baby and it is evolving well so far. We do hope the new Council stays on board with this programme as it is something new to Guyana, that will serve to help our children be more open, more articulate, be able to stand up for themselves,” she noted.
Junior Mayor, Devon Beckles is currently shadowing Arrindell while his junior councillors are visiting schools from which students will be selected to form a student council body. The students who are receiving a stipend from the Council, are also working on several community projects.
Over the last nine months, Arrindell has made overseas trips to the United States and Africa, where she was able to network and continue the process of twinning the township of Linden with other towns abroad. Former Mayor Carwyn Holland began the conversation for twinning with the city of Chongqing in China and Newark U.S.A. Arrindell said that she was able to take those discussions further. The Mayor visited the city of Newark as well as Stonecrest Georgia where initial discussions of twinning were done. She also noted that none of the overseas trips was funded by the Council.
The visits allowed the Council to open doors for investment opportunities, business, educational sponsorship, philanthropic and medical outreach support amongst others.
“One of the things we will gain from that twinning, is that we will be able to utilise the knowledge of how they built their riverfront park and of course we can use that to develop our riverfront, more so we are moving towards tourism, the Council has voted towards the twinning of Newark and so we will be able to pass that on.”
The visits also allowed the Council to join the Sister City International which is an organisation that allows cities from developed and developing countries worldwide to interact and share best practices. “Linden will have the opportunity to gain knowledge, training and support in many areas, this will augur well for the municipality and improve its efficiency of service to the town,” Arrindell noted.
During her tenure, Arrindell said that the Council would have also succeeded in the clearing of the dyke that allowed for the beautification of the township, collaboration with the Humanitarian Assistance Programme and New Horizons will see the building of a woman’s home and community training centre, and the introduction of the CIIP project at Bamia created employment for residents of that community amongst other things.
“The past six months have seen the Council really evolve… I believe that in this final term, the Council came together and we worked strategically to improve not only the standard of the workers in the municipality but also improve the township,” Arrindell noted.
The mayor is urging all eligible Lindeners to exercise their democratic right to vote on November 12 and elect a Council whom they deem best suited to continue the process of development. (Reprinted from DPI)
