To adequately manage local government, or anything else for that matter, one should have some general philosophical understanding of what local government should be and is and, given existing resources, what can be done to help it towards its goal.
Etched in the public mind about Mark Benschop is his incarceration, for five years, in solitary confinement for treason followed by an unconditional pardon by then President Bharrat Jagdeo.
I’d bet my bottom dollar that a substantial number of those who wanted to see the PPP/C out of government and supported the coalition are now extremely disappointed with the performance of the latter.
Say what you like about Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham, they and thus their governments had holistic and audacious views of Guyana and its development.
Last week I stated that during my presentation to the Public Service Commission of Inquiry I argued that after only a few months in office, the present regime succumbed to ethnic entrepreneurship and began undercutting its stated principles of what a public servant should be.
I have some pretty definite views about the Guyana public service, born of some theoretical understanding of how and what it should be doing in modern times and a quite lengthy sojourn in it.
On the morning of 4th June last year, I was at the Guyana Revenue Authority headquarters on Camp Street to collect my driver’s licence and had an interesting encounter with the now besieged Mr.
Last week, in commenting on the controversy that arose when the government sought to bulldoze three pieces of legislation (the Municipal and District Councils and Local Authorities (Amendment) Bill, the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (Amendment) Bill and the Anti-Terrorism and Terrorist Related Activities Bill) through the National Assembly at one sitting and the government’s response that the PPP/C’s regime had acted similarly, I concluded by suggesting that the current government and its supporters would do best to reference their behaviour against regional and international best practices rather than past PPP/C behaviour.
A few weeks ago, a furore arose over the regime’s stated intention to push three pieces of legislation (the Municipal and District Councils and Local Authorities (Amendment) Bill, the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (Amendment) Bill and the Anti-Terrorism and Terrorist Related Activities Bill) through parliament at one sitting.
After the First World War, armed with a ‘progressive’ fourteen-point plan that called for, among other things, the formation of a ‘general association of nations’, United States President Woodrow Wilson landed in Europe and was able to convince the relevant world that such a body (the forerunner of the United Nations) would be a useful international tool.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 21st Conference of the Parties (COP 21) which concluded last Saturday 12th December in Paris succeeded in delivering a universal framework agreement that concretises the direction of the climate change discourse and more importantly affirms the scope of the problem and the directions in which solutions should be sought.
‘Because what we must learn to do, we learn in the doing: we become a master builder by building and a zither-player by playing the zither.
There will be no legally binding agreement at the Paris Climate Summit that is at present taking place if an agreement on finance that is acceptable to the developing countries cannot be reached.
Notwithstanding the fact that most states are said to be independent and sovereign and the governments of small and weak countries are usually not bashful in laying claims to this status, global political economy suggests a different story.
On 30th October 2015, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) published its Global Response to Climate Change Keeps Door Open to 2 Degree C Temperature Limit, which synthesized the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) from some 146 countries, including all the developed and three quarters of the developing countries, including Guyana.
A few weeks ago, this column drew attention to the upcoming Paris Climate Summit (COP 21), which will be held under the aegis of the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) between November 30 and December 11 (UNFCC Paris 2015: the meaning of success.
A few days ago, it was reported that former president Donald Ramotar stridently objected to Red House, the home of the Cheddi Jagan Research Centre (CJRC), being used as a state-funded research centre for all past presidents.
When Cheddi Jagan came to office in October 1992 he did a most unusual thing for the working people in the public service.
The decision by the current regime to substantially raise its own salaries has been a disaster that I believe will follow it far into the future.
When a government deliberately refuses to listen to the voice of its people it had better be on solid ground, e.g.
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