The Guyana gov­ern­ment has reaf­firmed its com­mit­ment to trans­form­ing the cap­i­tal, George­town, in­to a sus­tain­able, mod­ern cap­i­tal while pre­serv­ing its unique her­itage and iden­ti­ty.

“The mis­man­age­ment and in­ef­fi­cien­cy through which the city is man­aged can no longer be tol­er­at­ed. It is time for us, as cit­i­zens and as a coun­try, to take charge of the sit­u­a­tion. We are ad­vanc­ing the res­cue of George­town, ” Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali told a news con­fer­ence, adding that the ini­tia­tive will form part of a broad­er na­tion­al strat­e­gy for sus­tain­able ur­ban de­vel­op­ment, start­ing with the cap­i­tal and its sur­round­ing re­gion.

The gov­ern­ment has said that over the past five years, it has in­vest­ed bil­lions of dol­lars (One Guyana dol­lar=US$0.004 cents) in drainage up­grades, road im­prove­ments, hous­ing ex­pan­sion, and a high-span bridge over the De­mer­ara Riv­er, all aimed at im­prov­ing the qual­i­ty of life and sup­port­ing eco­nom­ic growth.