By Miranda La Rose
Some officials of the administrative regions believe that the time has come for the regions to be granted greater autonomy in the administration of their affairs.
Region Two (Pomeroon/Supenaam) Chair-man Ali Baksh believes that autonomy in the regions should depend on the strengths of the regions. Similarly he feels there is need for the neighbourhood democratic councils to have more freedom to execute their plans and projects to meet the development challenges on the ground and the needs of the people at a faster rate.
For instance in terms of regional governance, he feels that agriculture and its administration needs to be more decentralised in Region Two to make its rewards more beneficial to the people.
He noted that the regional economy depends heavily on agriculture with rice accounting for 80% of the agricultural output. However, he noted that in spite of revenue the region earns for the national economy through rates, taxes and royalties, the region does not get adequate returns for its contributions.
He feels that the region ought to receive a higher percentage or bigger share of the wealth it creates to ensure maximum development of the region.
By getting a bigger percentage of its earnings, Baksh said that the region would be better placed to deal directly and effectively with threats and vulnerabilities including the sea and river defences. “We are very vulnerable to the Atlantic Ocean as well as the Pomeroon River,” he said, noting that floods threaten the agricultural potential of the region.
Generally, he feels that the Region Two Regional Democratic Council (RDC) gets most of the funding its seeks to carry through with its annual work programmes but he says the region could always do with much more funding for areas like sea and river defence.
Autonomy, he said, should be granted according to the strengths of the regions because of the different stages of development they are at.
PPP/C MP and former Region One (Barima/Waini) Chairman Norman Whittaker said that regions do require some level of autonomy.
When he served as regional chairman, Whittaker said that one of the problems, if not the biggest problem, he experienced was that of dualism in reporting and accountability. Using education as an example, he said that he was never sure who the Regional Education Officer should be reporting to. “Is it the RDC or the Ministry of Education?”
He said there were occasions when the Regional Educational Officer would leave the region without the knowledge of the RDC. It was not a matter of obtaining permission to travel to Georgetown but simply a matter of informing the RDC or the Regional Executive Officer of his/her absence from the region.
He feels that the functional heads of government departments in the region should channel their reports through the RDC in spite of the fact that central government provides most of the financial resources to run the region.
Still he feels that the level of autonomy could be addressed through fiscal transfer legislation which should give the region greater responsibility for managing its finances and accountability. He hopes that the Local Government Reform Task Force addresses the issue of reporting and accountability.
Policies
“We are the elected representatives of the people in the region whether we are PPP/C, PNCR or AFC,” he said adding “having said that, we could not go outside of government’s policies.”
He had no problem with keeping to government’s policies but the problem was in the administration of those policies. He admitted, however, that in spite of the reporting mechanism in place for the Region One Regional Executive Officer, he experienced very minimal problems since they held frequent meetings with each other.
The Regional Executive Officers who are appointees of the government report to the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, and the Ministry of Finance while still serving the region as clerk of the RDC.
Noting systems of decentralization in other parts of the world where regions, states or provinces exercise levels of autonomy even bringing into being laws relevant to their constituency, Whittaker said he hoped that “some day we get to that level.”
While the experiences of Baksh and Whittaker might have been different in having good working relationships with their respective Regional Executive Officers, Region Ten (Upper Demerara/Upper Berbice) Chairman Mortimer Mingo told Stabroek News a different story recently.
Mingo said that the RDC could not get the cooperation of the Regional Executive Officer of Region Ten and this was undermining and stymieing the work of the council. Mingo contended that the Regional Executive Officer was instead taking orders from the central ministry.
Recently Region Four (Demerara/Mahaica) Chairman Clement Corlette and Mingo told the Stabroek News they felt that appointments of the regional executive officers should not be by central government but by an independent commission like the Local Government Commission for which the constitution makes provision for all local democratic organs and which was still to be set up.
Co-Chairman of the Local Government Reform Task Force, Vincent Alexander also noted lately that the appointment of the Regional Executive Officers by the Local Government Commis-sion was not a part of the current reform being undertaken. However, Corlette and Mingo feel that they should be responsible for appointments not only for the municipalities and neighbourhood democratic councils but also for the REOs and staff of the RDC.
The Local Government Reform Task Force comprises representatives of the ruling PPP/C and the PNCR but it has no representative of the other parliamentary political parties.
Update
AFC MP Sheila Holder told Stabroek News that her party has not had the privilege as a new parliamentary party of having an update of the work of the task force. “It is not for the want of asking,” she said noting that they have asked on many occasions and have gotten a lot of excuses and promises but are still to be updated.
Among reforms already suggested, Holder said that there needs to be regulations that would ensure that geographic members of parliament are connected to the regions they represent. “We now have geographic MPs who have no connection to the administration of the regions they claim to represent. When they are looking at the local government reform issue it should correct that situation, if not, it is fictitious,” she said.
The AFC, she noted, was occupying seats on a number of RDCs countrywide and has begun to experience some of the challenges the RDCs were facing in terms of the control the administration has on them.
“The more this administration insists on control of the administration of the regions, the more they will destabilise and undermine their own capacity to govern. They don’t see it that way and I don’t know how long before they are going to wake up to this reality,” she said.
She added that unknowingly, the government by controlling the regions through political appointments was creating a body of discontent that would undermine the very authority they are fighting to control.
“They must also understand it is having a negative impact on investment creating justification for all kinds of corrupt activity and injustices being meted out. They have to come to the realisation that the devolution of power has to move from theory into practice. When that begins to happen, their task of governing the country would become easier,” she said.
