The Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development says the rotation of the Neighbourhood Democratic Councils’ overseers has been done within the legal framework.
GINA said that speaking to the media yesterday afternoon at the Ministry’s Kingston office, Minister of Local Government and Regional Development Ganga Persaud, along with Minister in the Ministry, Norman Whittaker and Permanent Secretary Collin Croal, said the Local Government System over the last few months has been enmeshed in reforms.
As a result there has been some rotation of Regional Executive Officers (REOs,) Regional Engineers and NDC overseers.
Opposition Leader David Granger had called on President Donald Ramotar to halt the arbitrary transfers.
Persaud said the ministry had sought legal advice from the Attorney General Anil Nandlall.
“We were assured that the minister has acted in keeping with the legal framework and that there is no issue as it regards to the minister’s authority vested in the legislation,” Persaud said, according to GINA.
Persaud added that the ministry would have also received correspondence from persons concerned at the rotation. Persaud said that “no overseer will receive less benefit than he/she would have been receiving prior to the rotation”.
Persaud said that even amidst the seeming controversy, all the overseers in Region 2 have assumed duties in their new locations and a similar situation exists in Region 6. There has been some movement in Region 3 and 4 and significant movement in Region 5, he added. The minister said that some overseers are still in the process of handing over and balancing records and bringing books update.
A statement from the office of the Opposition Leader said that 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 that 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 that 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 that 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 that 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 Minister of Local Government 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 seems to be high-handed, void of salient reasons, is being carried out without reference to views” of the RDC.
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.
