President Bharrat Jagdeo says that he will meet with the Leader of the Opposition in a final attempt to resolve outstanding issues with regard to the reform of local government legislation but if this is unsuccessful, the debate will be moved to the National Assembly.

He told reporters at a press conference at the Office of the President yesterday that when he returns from the Summit of the Americas next week he will contact Opposition Leader, Robert Corbin and arrange a meeting.

“I am finished and done with this approach where members of the PPP and members of the PNC, they sit in a close huddle outside of the glare of the public eye and public scrutiny and take eight years to conclude; to about conclude two pieces of legislation and still have another two to work on, of the four that are required for us to hold local government elections”, he said.

The president’s comments follow his statements last month that he had hoped for a bilateral agreement between government and the opposition to conclude the framework for the holding of elections. However, he had said that 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.

It also follows 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. Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon said last week 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 had said.

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.

Yesterday Jagdeo criticized the time the discussions had taken stating that if the same timeline was used it would taken another eight years to complete the discussions.  He declared that the task force had enough time and said that he was told by Collymore that the opposition side was “stonewalling” and there was no sense of urgency “and therefore I have decided that that’s the end of the matter. Minister Collymore said he was frustrated, he tried but they couldn’t advance the work any further”.

President Jagdeo said that he was of the same opinion. “Once we get all of the work that they have completed, I will make one attempt to try to solve the outstanding issues with the leader of the opposition. If that doesn’t succeed then we will take the four bills to the parliament”, he added.

“This is the government of Guyana approach to this matter. We want it done transparently, in the public eye, these future discussions; so that if there is any pedantic behaviour on the part of either of the two parties, then the public can see this and judge for themselves”.

The President stated that once the issues are resolved local government elections will be held. The country has suffered too much because of the absence of local government elections, he said, adding that almost all of the local government bodies are either dysfunctional or functioning sub-optimally and that is why local issues remain unresolved.

Reiterating that when he meets with the Opposition Leader, if the issues are not resolved, they would be taken to Parliament, the President declined to set a timeline for when this would be done but said it would be soon after the discussions.