Unhappy with the combined opposition’s revisiting of contentious issues during the ongoing parliamentary review of the local government reform bills, Local Government Minister Ganga Persaud yesterday warned that the window is closing for the holding of long delayed polls this year.
Persaud’s assessment came despite the pronouncement by APNU MP Basil Williams, who is Chairman of the special select committee reviewing the bills, that the committee’s work is almost complete.
During a press briefing, Persaud said APNU’s insistence on proposing “contentious” amendments to the bills is a major “impediment” to progress. He said these realities, coupled with the fact that it is already the sixth month of the year, makes holding local government elections in 2013 a very difficult task.
Earlier this year though, the minister as well as other government officials seemed to have a different position.
In early April, Presidential Adviser on Governance Gail Teixeira had said that the majourity of the issues in the bills had already been examined and resolved. She further stated that there were one or two elements that would have to be revised once the less contentious issues had been dealt with. Similarly, Persaud had told Stabroek News that the committee meetings were moving apace since the committee members were not allowing contentious issues to derail their business.
“The committee has adopted the attitude of moving past the difficult, contentious issues, which will be re-examined and smoothed out once the simpler issues are dealt with,” Persaud had said.
During yesterday’s briefing, however, Persaud said that “an impediment to progress is the APNU’s approach in bringing back two issues which were dealt with at the task forces and dismissed. These were found to be unacceptable at the level of the task forces but are now being reintroduced at the level of the select committee.”
One of the issues alluded to by Persaud includes proposals by the APNU to transplant functions which currently resides with the Local Government Minister to the Local government Commission. Also, the opposition was keen on amending the way in which the members of the Commission are appointed, since government in effect can select all six members. Persaud said that these issues had already been dealt with by a task force in 2012 and were deemed improper, but added that the opposition was using its majority at the level of the committee to push its agenda through.
These issues were ultimately “parked” by the committee to facilitate the timely consideration of the bills but were re-visited last Friday.
Persaud said the resuscitation of these proposed amendments “is a deliberate ploy to foster conflict in the select committee, thereby ensuring that local government elections in this country are delayed.” He further stated that “if there is consistency with regards to the holding of local government elections in this country, [it] is the opposition’s approach in ensuring that there is no agreement.”
Meanwhile, Williams says that the committee has one bill left to consider, and that the bill’s consideration may be completed as early as the next meeting.
On Sunday, he informed Stabroek News that three of the four bills which the Committee was charged with reviewing, namely the Local Government Commission Bill, the Local Government (Amendment) Bill, and the Municipal and District Councils (Amendment) Bill had been completed. He added that the committee is now positioning itself to tackle the remaining Fiscal Transfers Bill.
Last Friday, however, the contentious issues previously “parked” were re-visited and settled in the committee. Williams said that despite “skirmishes” between government and the combined opposition, the opposition parties successfully voted to retain the amendments which they had proposed.
Persaud, however, says that despite the voting, the bills have not been completed to the extent that they can now be brought back to the house. The minister said that the bills cannot be considered completed since the government still has issues with the proposals made by APNU.
Additionally, Persaud lamented the fact that the combined opposition has opted to oppose the contract extension of Chief Elections Officer Gocool Boodhoo. Further, Persaud chastised the Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) for allowing its decisions to be influenced by the opposition political parties.
The Minister said that political parties should not seek to determine who the employees Gecom should be, and added that this issue creates further doubt on whether or local government elections will be held this year.
He said that “the PPP is against parties determining who should be employed by the commission, but said that “if political parties are going to jump in to dictate, the PPP would also like to have its say.”
