NESDEC promises to be more visible for 2007

With the view that the national plan goes beyond a political government’s five-year term in office, Chairman of the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDEC), Martin Laborde, believes that his organisation would be the vanguard for progress.

Laborde who was speaking at a press conference on Tuesday January 9 announced that NESDEC, which was made up of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO’s), Civil Society and government, has drafted a social contract between government and civil society to help map out a plan for this country’s future.{{more}}

The NESDEC Chairman firmly believed in the Prime Minister’s statement that “this country was on the cusp of an economic take off” and pointed out that most developed nations have a 15, 20 or 25 year plan with broad-based guidelines to map out their country’s development.

He said that NESDEC was on a similar quest to implement this for the betterment of this country’s future, and unlike rumours that NESDEC was “dead” he said the critics were “fooling themselves” because it was alive but was probably not promoting what it had been doing well enough.

Outlining some of the plans for NESDEC, Deputy Chairman, Renwrick Rose said that the social contract draft between civil society and government would be scrutinised in a discussion meeting to be held on January 22 by various sectors of society before coming into agreement and the draft being taken to government.

Rose said that there needed to be things such as a concrete legal position on how certain institutions are established and how certain civil society organisations

conduct themselves so that they are obligated and committed to structure and not operate in a chaotic manner which could cause national problems.

The NESDEC deputy chairman chastised critics whom he said, “poured cold water” on the new path taken for development and urged them to envision the overall goal of NESDEC for the country.

With the promise from the team that NESDEC would be more visible for 2007, funding for several projects in areas such as poverty reduction would be released by next month so they could be started.

By the end of 2007 a road map for the National Development Plan would be established for the next 10-15 years.