Says the ‘task force doesn’t exist’

Saying the government is committed to having overdue local government polls held this year, Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon has said that accompanying legislative reforms would be reviewed at the parliamentary level.

During a post-cabinet press briefing on Thursday, Dr Luncheon told reporters that in light of the poll preparations that the government had supported, it believed the discussions on local government legislation should take place at the parliamentary level, where they would have a statutory outcome. “The earlier it gets there, the more time can be given to its consideration and still allow us to be reasonably assured that you [are] going to have local government elections in 2009,” he said.

His comments came in the wake of the decision by Co-Chair Clinton Collymore to end the local government reform task force discussions, citing “a major fundamental disagreement” between the PNCR and PPP/C members on the way forward. Collymore’s decision has been resisted by the parliamentary opposition parties − PNCR-1G, AFC and GAP-ROAR − which have expressed concern about the holding of the polls without the necessary reforms.

Last month, President Bharrat Jagdeo has said that he had hoped for a bilateral agreement between government and the opposition to conclude the framework for the holding of elections. However, he said if an agreement could not be reached at a bilateral level, the parties would have to go to parliament and have the debates take place there.

Local government elections have been due since 1997. The Joint Task Force on Local Government Reform was set up in 2001 by agreement between President Jagdeo and then opposition leader Desmond Hoyte. The task force, made up of representatives of the majority PPP/C and the main opposition PNCR, had initially been given a one-year mandate for the completion of local government reforms but it has been reconstituted at least twice since then to complete the process.

Luncheon, who on Thursday said “the task force doesn’t exist” in the view of the administration, took the position that the parliament may be “the most appropriate place” to go with the legislation, instead of the “dispute-ridden” process that had hindered the review in a timely manner. Additionally, he noted that while the task force could simply be seen as “another understanding between the PPP and PNC,” the parliamentary process would be more transparent, allowing the involvement of other parties while avoiding the need to revisit issues that might have been raised at the level of the task force. He stressed that it was nonsensical for the government to make a commitment to holding polls this year, while remaining beholden to the slothful approach and delays by the task force in completing its work.

Luncheon explained that the government’s commitment to holding the polls had been reinforced by the work of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) in its preparations, including the completion of house-to-house registration, the move to produce and distribute national Identification (ID) cards and the hiring of personnel to conduct claims and objections. According to Luncheon, it would be “foolhardy” for the government to support the preparations for the polls and then have them “falter” because the necessary legislation was not in place. He said if the task force were allowed to continue “in its slow way of doing things” then the polls could be delayed until 2020.

Asked whether the government would move all of the legislation for consideration at the parliamentary level, Luncheon said that all of the local government legislation that was needed for compliance with constitutional provisions for elections would be taken to the house. However, he did not rule out additional legislation being introduced.

On Wednesday, members of the joint parliamentary opposition emphasised the need for meaningful reforms of the local government system before the holding of polls. Opposition leader Robert Corbin accused Collymore of acting unilaterally, noting that the announcement of the end of the discussions had been made without any notice or discussion with the PNCR Co-Chair Allan Munroe. Corbin further said that it was obvious that Collymore was acting on instructions from above.

In a statement issued the same day, Collymore took sole responsibility for ending the discussions. He explained that the task force’s agenda included the Fiscal Transfers Bill 2009, the Local Government (Amendment) Bill 2009 and the Local Government Commission Bill 2009. He said final adjustments had been made to the Fiscal Transfers Bill, with inputs from Munroe and PPP/C representative Navin Chanderpal.

According to Collymore, when the task force reached the point in the agenda to discuss the Local Government (Amendment) Bill, the PNCR members insisted on looking at the Local Government Commission Bill instead. He said the issue became “a major and fundamental disagreement” as the PPP/C members noted that the former law had higher priority than the latter. “There was no way we could have proceed with the meeting,” he said, “At that point I announced that for all intents and purposes, discussions at the task force level had come to an end and that pending any further notification from me no meetings of the task force would take place.”

Collymore admitted that the PNCR members were surprised and indicated that they were not in favour of the decision.

He insisted, however, that it was his decision in view of the fact that the discussion had come to an end on the bills that they had agreed to discuss. “Since there was no agreement on which of the two remaining bills to discuss, there was no sense in proceeding with further meetings,” he said. He also stated that he would notify both President Jagdeo and Corbin in writing of the cessation of the meetings, the reasons for his decision and the areas of disagreement.  “I terminated the meeting on my own volition,” he added, noting that according to the agreement between the parties no meeting of the task force could be held without a properly constituted quorum, which included both co-chairs and at least a member from each side.