Opposition Leader David Granger yesterday called on President Donald Ramotar to halt the People’s Progressive Party/Civic administration’s plan to re-deploy overseers of several Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDC).
A statement from the office of the Opposition Leader said Granger wrote to Ramotar pointing out that A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and members of several Neighbourhood Democratic Councils are “deeply concerned about the arbitrary transfer of their duly appointed overseers to areas outside of the jurisdiction of their NDC by the Minister of Local Government or his officials, without any consultation with them.”
Granger said the result of the minister’s action is that confusion has been created among councils, the communities they represent and the political partners of APNU, particularly the People’s National Congress Reform. The statement said overseers affected by the minister’s arbitrary decision are likely to suffer “grave inconvenience and financial loss because of their assignments to areas far from where they reside and to areas with which they are not familiar.”
The statement said APNU does not believe that the law permits the Minister of Local Government to exercise such authority in the absence of specific recommendations from the relevant NDC. “It would be unwise, even if the minister had such authority, to take such a drastic step without consulting the NDCs that were elected by their constituency,” the statement declared.
Granger said the minister’s public pronouncement suggests that he is under the illusion that the overseers hired through the NDC with his approval are the staff of the Ministry of Local Government. “Such a notion is very dangerous to the development of local democracy in Guyana. It emphasises the urgent need for the completion of local government reform as contained in the recommendations of the Local Government Task Force,” the statement added.
Granger called on Ramotar to halt the minister’s action and to discuss the issue in order to arrive at an acceptable outcome.
Objecting to the transfer of overseers in the region, Region Four Chairman Clement Corlette on Friday wrote to Minister of Local Government Ganga Persaud requesting a meeting on the “arbitrary transfer” of overseers within the region’s NDCs.
In the letter to Persaud, released by the Office of the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) on Friday, Corlette said “Region 4 is concerned that the actions of your ministry seem to be high-handed, void of salient reasons, [and are] being carried out without reference to views,” of the RDC.
Efforts by Stabroek News to contact Persaud for a comment on Friday were unsuccessful.
Corlette characterised the move as a “flagrant violation” of the state paper 4/1980 on the purpose and responsibility of RDCs in the ten administrative regions of Guyana, which was approved by the National Assembly.
“Sir, Region 4 is not satisfied that your ministry can enforce the orders of transfer under the Permanent Secretary signature using Sec. 13 and 14 of Cap. 28:02 [the Municipal and District Councils Act]. And further, his reference to Sec. 13 & 14 Cap. 28:02 may be a gross violation of or an attempt to abuse the intentions of the specific powers of the minister,” he added.
Corlette further reminded that a number of the ministerial powers under the Act have been allotted to regions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 10 more than 25 years ago. In the absence of a government order to rescind the devolved powers, he said the ministry would be acting in “bad faith” to usurp the region’s authority to appoint and dismiss overseers.
To address the situation, Corlette proposed a meeting to be held tomorrow at the ministry.
