Stabroek News has invited the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance for Change to submit a weekly column on local government and related matters. The PPP/C has declined the offer. Only APNU has submitted a column this week.
Guyanese citizens have been waiting for seventeen years to elect new councillors to six municipalities and sixty-five neighbourhood democratic councils. Elections are important because they are a democratic, constitutional right. Most councils that were democratically elected in 1994 have been replaced by government-appointed members and have become dysfunctional.
Local Government is a vital level of public administration because it deals with people’s daily lives, in their communities. Elections should be held every three years to allow people to democratically elect their representatives to govern their communities but these have not been taking place. Elections are essential because the entire local government system is rotten and must be rehabilitated and made fully functional. Normal local administration has been paralysed.
At the heart of the urban and rural development crisis is the question of who wields power in the municipal and neighbourhood councils. There must be change at the local level if Guyana is to become a more equal and inclusive society and a less unbalanced and undemocratic state. The People’s Progressive Party/Civic – PPP/C – administration, for over two decades,