Dear Editor,
Something weird occurred last weekend. Mr Lincoln Lewis announced in his weekly column in the Sunday Chronicle: “Hopefully, the UN visit this week can help.” He mentioned in the body of his ‘Eye on Guyana’ that a UN delegation will be arriving in Georgetown to “begin consultations on Constitution reform.” The question is, why did it have to be Mr Lewis and not the Government of Guyana which made such an important announcement.
This unannounced development has once again brought into disrepute the government’s commitment to transparency and public accountability on matters of national importance.
Constitutional reform in any country is a crucial matter of interest to all national stakeholders, the principal stakeholder being the citizens of any country. For the government to treat the people of Guyana in such a shabby manner on this important issue is most disrespectful and dishonourable to say the least.
Mr Moses Nagamootoo, the Prime Minister and cabinet member who holds the important information portfolio should have been the first to inform the nation about the imminent arrival in our country of a UN delegation which apparently has been identified to play an integral role in the reform process.
It is to be recalled that PM Nagamootoo who was handed the important responsibility to lead the process on constitutional reform, is on public record as stating what his priorities are in so far as the process and specific aspects of the Constitution are concerned. He was reported in SN of May 25, 2015 as stating: “I want to start on humbling the powers of the president, the excess powers of the executive and to bring about inclusion within the government system.” Nice sounding words but little or no action!
It appears that PM Nagamootoo made a faux pas in terms of the methodology he chose to kick-start the reform process. Apparently, his approach did not go down well with President Granger. He went about establishing an in-house, highly and tightly composed partisan steering committee to engage in a table-top exercise for the purpose of making recommendations. We subsequently saw in the press a photo showing PM Nagamootoo receiving a report from his team. The contents of the report were never made officially public.
President Granger subsequently dropped a bombshell. He rejected his Prime Minister’s formula for constitutional reform when he announced that he had a preference for a more open public process. PM Nagamootoo was left to ponder his next move. It is said that governments work in mysterious ways.
The situation has now made a 90 degree swerve with the arrival in Guyana of a UN delegation to engage in the process of constitutional reform. This calls into question which of the two formulas ie, the Nagamootoo or the Granger formula or both or neither will be adopted by the UN delegation when they settle down to work on the reform process.
At the moment it doesn’t appear that constitutional reform is high on the national agenda. Bread and butter issues are the flavour of the day and will probably remain there for quite some time into the future. Perhaps that’s why the government has not given any prominence to the presence in Guyana of a UN delegation.
Did Mr Lewis let the cat out of the bag when he wrote about a UN delegation or was he asked to leak it to the public through his weekly ‘Eye on Guyana’?
Who knows?
Yours faithfully,
Clement J Rohee
