After 19 years in government, Guyana’s ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP) continues to flout the constitution and repudiate the rule of law in many aspects of its governance of Guyana.
This blatant disregard for the rule of law can be no more apparent than the political dabbling of Dr. Roger Luncheon, Guyana’s most senior public servant.
Dr. Luncheon, is currently the Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Secretary of the Cabinet and Secretary of the Defence Board. If you ask me, he seems omnipresent in the civil service and indispensible to the PPP regime.
His occupancy of all of these senior positions notwithstanding, in each of the aforementioned capacities in which he functions, he is deemed by law to be a public servant who is an officer of the government and State of Guyana.
Thus, by law he cannot overtly express a political opinion and is prohibited from openly supporting, much less campaigning for, a political party.
Contrary to extant law, Dr. Luncheon has been the most boisterous campaigner-in-chief for the PPP on the hustings. He has been attacking the official political opposition, a part of the State of Guyana, without restraint or decorum – a commission of malfeasance and conflict of interest.
He is not only in breach of the public service rules, but his conduct is reckless, wholly unacceptable and repugnant to the constitution of Guyana.
It is therefore disturbing that the political opposition parties, civil society and even the members of the diplomatic corps; especially from the ABC countries and international organizations like the US, UK, United Nations and the OAS, many of whom fund the elections process, allow the PPP government to get away with this reprehensible lawlessness.
Furthermore, it is particularly shocking that the political opposition, like everything else, seems ineptly nonchalant about this issue. I ask: is this the level of representation the people of Guyana deserve?
This violation is a national disgrace.
I therefore call on Dr. Luncheon to immediately resign from each and every position of the government and State of Guyana.
Yours faithfully,
Rickford Burke
President, Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID)
