Technical challenges involving the demarcation of constituencies have resulted in a delay of plans to upgrade Mahdia, Region Eight, to a town.
This is according to Minister of Communities, Mr. Ronald Bulkan, who explained that the aforementioned shortcoming had in fact prevented the community from participating in the last local government elections. Government, he said, will be looking forward to correcting this issue.
The Court house in Mahdia.
His remarks were forthcoming during a recent ministerial outreach where he told the residents that their community will be commissioned as a township, despite the challenges that government faces.
Minister Bulkan explained that the Region Eight community has to be upgraded to a different level where, “it no longer remains in its existing vacuum” but would create overwhelming benefits for the residents and community.
Juan Hunter, a resident of Mahdia said that his community needs a development plan to be guided by, instead of spending monies for different issues that are not pushing the community’s development. Hunter noted that the residents also need to become the driving force for development.
The Minister of Communities applauded the resident’s suggestion and explained that he would like to empower residents to manage their affairs. He noted that there would no longer be need for outsiders to implement plans in the community, therefore there is need for capable persons to manage Mahdia’s business.
In 2016, the government created three new towns; Mabaruma in Region One, Bartica in Region Seven and Lethem in Region Nine. The creation of the new towns and Neighbourhood Democratic Councils are part of the administration’s policy and vision of fostering national development via regional and local empowerment, given central government’s stated commitment to a philosophy of decentralised governance.