President Bharrat Jagdeo and Opposition leader Robert Corbin met on Tuesday and discussed issues relating to upcoming local government elections.
No official statement was made by either Office of the President (OP) or the Office of the Leader of the Opposition on the engagement, which surprised the other parliamentary opposition parties.
Corbin, when contacted by Stabroek News, yesterday confirmed that there had been an engagement with President Jagdeo earlier in the week, where the issue of local government reform had been discussed.
Corbin, while declining to term the engagement a “meeting,” stressed that this was the only matter raised during the discussions. He said that more details of the encounter will be disclosed shortly after the PNCR completes its consultations with various parties and bodies concerning local government reform.
OP Press and Publicity officer Kwame McCoy, when contacted, also confirmed that there had been a meeting between Jagdeo and Corbin. He, however, said he was unaware what would have been raised when the two parties met.
The engagement surprised representatives of the Alliance for Change (AFC) and GAP/ROAR. When contacted, AFC Leader Raphael Trotman said he had learnt about the meeting after it had occurred and he was not aware what had been discussed.
Trotman said that if indeed the issue of local government elections was raised at the meeting with the President, it had nothing to do with Corbin’s constitutional duty as Opposition Leader.
Previously, Trotman had accused the PPP/C and the PNCR of engaging in secret talks, an allegation which was staunchly refuted by both parties.
Trotman also told this newspaper that the PNCR had signalled its desire to engage the AFC on the issue of local government elections but that this meeting was yet to occur. According to him, his party would engage the PNCR, only after the AFC leadership would have had an internal meeting over the weekend.
GAP/ROAR MP Everall Franklin also had concerns about the secrecy of the meeting and said that he was only informed about it on Thursday.
He too said he was unaware about what had been discussed. Franklin said he had met with the Opposition Leader on Thursday to discuss the matter of local government reform.
According to him, at this meeting with Corbin, he repeated the needs for reform in terms of the Local Government Commission, since the amount of power that the Minister possessed had to be addressed. Further, Franklin said the matter of fiscal transfers also needed to be examined, since it made no sense to elect officials at the NDC and municipality levels and they have no money to run the affairs of these institutions.
Recently, both the PNCR and the PPP have spoken about making renewed attempts to engage each other. The most recent of these overtures from the President was made on Sunday, during his address at a memorial service held at Babu John in honour of former President Dr Cheddi Jagan.
When Corbin was asked yesterday about the progress that has been made in these efforts to re-engage the administration, he said that this was still very much on his party’s agenda. “At this stage, I would only say that the PNCR is still vigorously pursuing these objectives, not only with the PPP/C but with other groups and in the course of a few days or a week or so, we will be in a position to report on progress on these matters.”
At the press conference, Corbin said the main opposition has started consultations with the parliamentary opposition parties and civil society groups to counteract “obvious attempts by the PPP/C administration” to frustrate local government reform.
He accused the PPP/C of attempting to “perpetrate a hoax on the Guyanese people” and said that following these consultations, a definitive station will be made on the matter.
Corbin stated that in the past the PPP/C had agreed that the completion of local government was a “natural prerequisite for the holding of local government elections,” but said that the administration is now determined to maintain the old local government system while seeking to fool the public with the implementation of the reformed electoral system.
He accused the government of undermining the local governments system by their mishandling of the pieces of local government legislation, which was placed before the Select committee in the National Assembly. According to Corbin, less than a fifth of the reforms have been completed.
The PNCR Leader also accused the government of using diversionary tactics by raising issues such as who the PPP presidential candidate would be in the 2011 general elections and overseas voting. He stressed that his party would not be distracted by these diversionary attempts.