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Mar 13, 2012 News
A Partnership For National Unity (APNU) yesterday blasted government for what it described as an
arbitrary decision to transfer a number of overseers earlier this year.
APNU Member of Parliament, Ronald Bulkan, in a release from his party yesterday said that the transfers of overseers from the Neighbourhood Democratic Councils are “highly questionable” and “objectionable”.
Bulkan insisted that the 65 NDCs are local organs which elect their own Chairmen and councilors and employ their overseers.
“Clause 42 (1) of the local government Act, Chapter 28:02 empowers the NDCs to enter into contracts of employment with the respective overseers. These overseers work for and with the NDCs. The Government gives a meager subvention to the NDCs but this can hardly take care of the maintenance of drainage and irrigation much less the proper management of the entire NDC.”
“Additionally, there is also no direct payment from Central Government to the overseers but the NDCs have to pay them. It must be noted that rates and taxes paid by residents within the NDC largely takes care of the financing of the business of these NDCs.”
According to Bulkan, in many cases these overseers have to travel to another NDC to do the work which they were doing in the NDC they originally came from.
The APNU Parliamentarian asked of the Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, Ganga Persaud, whether the transferring of the overseers was a PPP gimmick.
“Is it a ploy to inflict more hardship on the people of Guyana?”
According to Bulkan, the overseers out of fear had to give life to the transfers against their will. “It is for reasons like these that a great chunk of the electorate turned their backs against the PPP/C. They must stop using their powers to inflict harm on our people. The Guyanese people deserve a better life.”
“During the 9th Parliament, many local government bills were discussed by a Special Select Committee of the National Assembly. There were issues which were not resolved and agreed by the Committees. We must bring them back, re-open the discussions on those issues and have them resolved.”
Bulkan insisted that there can be no Local Government elections without the completion of reforms proposed by the Local Government Task Force.
“The PPP/C must understand that local government elections without the reforms will be a recipe for disaster. The people of Guyana are awake and have sent the strong message that they want good governance.”
The statement by Bulkan and APNU, a coalition of 10 parties and organizations that contested the November elections and is now the main opposition in Parliament, followed moves by the government earlier this year to revamp the NDCs. There have been complaints of rampant corruption and laziness at these community organizations.
However, the moves have not gone down well with the public service union and others have accused government of acting out its authority.
APNU’s Chairman in February had called on President Donald Ramotar to halt the plan to redeployment.
David Granger has written to Ramotar pointing out that there were concerns about the “arbitrary transfer” of their duly appointed overseers to areas outside of the jurisdiction.
“The result of the Minister’s action is that confusion has been created among Councils, the communities they represent and the political partners of APNU, particularly the People’s National Congress Reform,” Granger had stated.
In the West Demerara area, around 11 NDCs had reportedly written the government voicing their disapproval of the orders which came via letters from the Ministry recently.
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