Is anyone seeing the foolishness that is passing for governance?

Nov 17, 2009 Letters

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Dear Editor,
In every democracy where elections are standard preliminary requirements for the democratic process to work effectively, laws are actually written into the constitutions of different levels of government to ensure elections are held at scheduled times so people can freely elect their leaders.
Elections, therefore, are not an optional exercise in practicing democracies that can be delayed for extended periods because of partisan politics, but a constitutional right of the people and constitutional responsibility of the governments involved.
Anything less is a denial of the people’s rights and a violation of the relevant constitution and demands legal recourse via the court system.
That said, the PPP Government, which has constitutional responsibility for holding Local Government elections in Guyana since 1994, is now on par with its one-time arch-nemesis, the PNC, when it comes to denying Guyanese voters the right to free and fair elections.
Whereas the PNC rigged national and regional/local elections from 1968 to 1985, the PPP Government has played a major role in literally denying voters the right to choose their local government leaders.
Worse, this government seems oblivious to the constitutional rights of the people as it pushes for Interim Management Committees as a substitute for elected local government officials.
Therefore, the PPP Government has no right to be blaming any local government management team, including and especially the Georgetown City Council, for whatever problems they are facing.
In fact, this is why the so-called strongly worded statement released by the Local Government Ministry that said, “Central Government will withhold possible assistance to the Council unless the Council collects over $100 million owed it by the PNC”, deserves to be treated with utter disdain by Guyanese.
Because of the dotted line relationship linking the Central Government to the City Council via the Local Government Ministry, the Central Government had to know about this debt as it mounted up over the years and said or did nothing publicly to address it, as it now appears to be doing.
And the reason for that was because it was politically expedient for the PPP Government to help keep the PNC alive and seemingly politically relevant so the PPP can pursue its selfish agenda of using the PNC as a whipping boy before Indian Guyanese at election time.
Further, it is absolutely ludicrous that the Central Government would try to pull a fast one on Guyanese by saying “the fact that Mayor Hamilton Green is sitting on the PNCR Executive Committee and not collecting the rates and taxes is a glaring case of conflict of interest”. Mr. Green was Georgetown Mayor on the GGG ticket during the years that the PNC was running up its debt with the Council, but Central Government only issued a statement against the Council and the PNC after Mr. Green returned to the PNC.
The timing of the statement’s release, therefore, was politically convenient for the PPP Government and hardly speaks of any conflict of interest by Mr. Green as much as it does of the utter hypocrisy of government’s gutter politics.
I am not going to sit here and play defence for Mayor Green or the PNC, for God knows they have helped screw up Guyana, but for the PPP Government, which was supposed to come in to power and straighten out this mess, to now be helping widen and perpetuate the mess, voids its ongoing charges of incompetence or worse in the Georgetown City Council.
To all my fellow Guyanese, all the local government organs have been serving at the pleasure of the Central Government since 1994, so whatever criticisms these organs face must be shared directly by the Central Government.
And if anyone argues IMCs are the way to go as an alternative to electing officials to run local governments, s/he either has no idea of or respect for the constitution mandating scheduled local government elections or s/he is parroting lines put out by the Central Government.
Look, IMCs are not new in local government systems, and I do recall back in the 90s, a county in California (might have been Orange County) faced a major crisis and it became necessary for a temporary corporation to be named to run it until the crisis was resolved. Once the crisis was resolved, the system was returned to the people via elections.
IMCs are supposed to be a temporary measure, not a medium to long-term political move intended to help politicians and political parties gain toe-holds and fortify strongholds. In Linden, an IMC has been running the town for several years now and that should not be.
As flawed as the local government system was up until 1994, I am sure constitutionally due Local Government elections could have been held in the interim while the parliamentary parties worked on fixing the system so it can be useful to the people as opposed to being useful to political parties.
One of the major problems with the local government system is that the constitution, originally designed for the PNC regime, allows for a direct working relationship between the Central Government and the local government organs via the Local Government Ministry.
The PNC’s practice and policy of paramountcy required such a direct working relationship since it allowed the Central Government to run political interference in local government organs, and it is this policy and practice that the PPP wants to fully exploit, starting with picking its own people to run IMCs and when it feels it can win all local government elections, then make it possible for such elections to be held and hope it wins. If it wins them all then it will merely seek to continue the practice and policy of party paramountcy of its predecessor.
The end game in everything the PPP and its government are doing is about dominance and control, akin to a dictatorship.
This is why local government reforms should include ending the direct working relationship between Central Government and local governments by abolishing the Local Government Ministry and allowing local and regional governments to be autonomous, akin to the system in the United States where clear lines of demarcation keep the federal from the state from local/county governments apart.
Mayors and county executives don’t report to state governors and state governors do not report to the president.
And the president or the executive branch cannot become politically involved in the business affairs of the state or the county, except in emergency situations where federal help is needed or where federal laws are violated.
I conclude by asking Guyanese to take a careful look at this ongoing foolishness by the PPP Government and understand that it is not happening in isolation of an otherwise general style of good governance, but fits a pattern that speaks of a deliberate plot by the government to subvert the rights and will of the people to achieve narrow, partisan goals and simply blame others when crises develop there from.
Notice, for example, that the PNC owes the M&CC $100M, but the M&CC owes the GPL $600M and the GPL owes the M&CC $700M.
The Central Government is responsible for both the M&CC and GPL, so why did Central Government allow these enormous amounts to be mutually owed between the M&CC and GPL without issuing a strongly worded statement, but can issue one because the PNC owes a far less amount of $100M? The double standard just spreads like a wildfire!
Is anyone seeing the foolishness that is passing for governance in Guyana? How can voters ever put an ‘x’ next to the Palm Tree or the Cup in 2011?
Between the PPP and the PNC – the two parties that agreed to stop LG elections until reforms are done – Guyanese have been held politically hostage long enough and if Guyanese don’t vote for genuine change in 2011, they have only themselves to blame for their ongoing dilemma!
Emile Mervin

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