The Guyana National Council on Public Policy (GNCPP) says the PPP administration’s stymieing of the $300M USAID LEAD Project is akin to trampling on citizens’ rights to use lawful democratic means to empowerment.
In a press release, the public policy think-tank said that under constitutional provisions governing the rights, roles and responsibilities of Guyana’s civil society, “to deny non-Government and Civil Society Organizations access to international assistance in the interest of fostering their own Political Idealism and Party Politics is to emphatically trample upon citizens’ rights to use lawful, democratic means to independently assist the political system with respect to the governance of the Guyanese society.”
The GNCPP said the move was “crass interference and spiteful over-reaching by those whom have been given charge of managing and governing this country.” It also asserted that Article Thirteen of the Constitution which provides specifically for “inclusionary democracy by providing increasing opportunities for the participation of citizens and their organizations in the management and decision-making processes of the State” must not be overlooked or debased in this issue of such foreign-funded assistance programmes as the LEAD project or other funding from the European Union, Canada and others.
