-Carberry
The Bharrat Jagdeo administration is yet to communicate to the main opposition party when it will reconstitute the parliamentary select committee tasked with completing the outstanding legislative reforms for local government, PNCR-1G Parliamentary Chief Whip Lance Carberry said yesterday.
Carberry made the disclosure at the party’s weekly press conference at Congress Place, in response to a question about the government’s efforts to resuscitate the work on the reforms.
Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon said last week that the administration intends to address the issue of the reforms in the parliamentary select committee. He also ruled out the possibility that the government would move to re-establish a mechanism similar to the Local Government Reform Task Force, which was abandoned last year after eight years of work.
When Carberry was asked if the party was concerned that the delay in reconvening the discussions would prevent the holding of the elections, he said he did not wish to speculate on the issue. He did, however, state that the PNCR would find it difficult to support the holding of these elections if the reforms are not satisfactorily implemented. “I would not like to speculate that the elections will not be held this year…if there is the political will and commitment we can, in fact, complete the reforms necessary for the legislation,” he said. “But what is also important and very vital is not only the passage of the legislation but the implementation of the reforms.
“And that is very, very important,” he added. “So until those reforms are implemented to the satisfaction of the opposition…we of course would find it difficult to support the idea of holding local government elections,” Carberry said.
Earlier this week, Alliance For Change MP David Patterson urged the government to act on its promise to make “a last ditch effort to conclude the outstanding local government reforms,” and to reconvene the select committee.
He noted that more than three weeks have passed since President Jagdeo announced that the PPP/C was interested in restarting work on the reforms.
The remaining bills before the select committee are the Fiscal Transfers Bill, the Local Government (Amend-ment) Bill and the Municipal and District Councils (Amendment) Bill.
