Dear Editor,
Kindly see this letter as a response to one appearing in your issue of April 4, 2009 (‘Can the Minister of Local Government appoint an NDC Councillor?’), bearing the signature of Patrick Ashford Roberts, currently the Deputy Chairman of the Golden Grove Diamond Place Neigh-bourhood Democratic Coun-ci1 (NDC). In that NDC, the PPP/Civic has the majority. Mr Roberts’ group is in the minority.
Mr Roberts basically asked the question: “Does the Minister have the authority to appoint a councillor to an NDC?” The answer is yes! And Mr Roberts knows this fully well for it is not the first time he has raised this issue. He even consulted the office of the Chief Elections Officer and was told that the Elections Commission has no authority where that law is concerned. I was the Minister when he first raised the issue some years ago. I had appointed several persons to the NDC in strict accordance with the act. Now that there is a new Minister he probably feels that he can do so again. Well, I am sti1l in the system as the Advisor to the Minister of Local Government. Similar appointments have taken place elsewhere.
NDCs are governed by the Local Government Act. Chap-ter 28:02. At Section 35 of that act, it is stated in plain simple uncomplicated language:
“Where the Minister appoints the holder of any office in the public service to be a member of the local authority of a village or country district, the person for the time being performing the duties of that office shall, unless the Minister otherwise directs, be a member of the local authority.”
That law was made during the Forbes Burnham regime. It was revised on June 30, 1974 when Burnham was still in office as Prime Minister. Desmond Hoyte came later, met the law and left it intact. So did Cheddi Jagan, Janet Jagan, Sam Hinds and Bharrat Jagdeo. During the long hiatus (1970-1994) when the PNC regime held no local government elections, use was made of it to appoint persons to the depleted local government organs.
Mr Roberts appears to be peeved but his peevishness conceals his hidden agenda to take full control of the NDC for his own partisan pro-PNCR group. He will not succeed.
Editor the term ‘village’ in the context of Chapter 28:02 means ‘neighbourhood democratic council.’ I refer you to Order #51 made under the Local Democratic Organs Act (No 12 of 1980) on August 10, 1990 by Mr Jeffrey Thomas, the then Minister of Regional Development. That order states at paragraph 4(1):
“On such date as the Minister may appoint by notice published in the gazette, in relation to any region, being a date not later than twenty one days alter the declaration of the results of an election to choose the members of the neighbourhood democratic councils of that region, first held after the commencement of this Order, every district council established under the Municipal and District Councils Act and every local authority constituted under the Local Govern-ment Act (each such district council and local authority hereafter in this clause referred to as “dissolved local authority”) within that region, shall stand dissolved.”
Paragraph 3 of the same order indicates that neighbourhood democratic councils have taken over, where once existed district councils and village councils.
Yours faithfully,
Clinton Collymore
Ministerial Advisor
Ministry of Local Government
& Regional Development
