Local govt reform

The Joint Task Force on local government reform hopes its work would be completed by the third quarter of this year and ready for presentation to the National Assembly.

The Task Force’s work is critical to the holding of local government elections, which are long overdue.

Work on the second piece of draft legislation – the Fiscal Transfer Bill- is almost complete and work on the local government electoral system is more or less complete, Co-Chairman of the Task Force Vincent Alexander told Stabroek News last week.

According to Alexander, once the discussions on the proposals for the fiscal transfers have been completed, focus would be on the local government commission bill. The general amendment to the Local Government Act, he said, would complete the work of the Task Force.

He noted that the intention was to complete all the necessary reforms before local government elections, due since 1997, are held. “I hope that by the third quarter of this year this work should be completed,” he said.

Alexander said while work was ongoing it was not as energetic as it could be. He said the Attorney General’s Chambers was working with the Task Force. The AG Chambers was already in receipt of the proposals for the local government electoral system.

While the Electoral System and Fiscal Transfer bills might be completed soon, he said the idea was to present the bills in one package to Parliament. Among the proposals that had been made for the fiscal transfer system was a formula for the allocations from central government to local government to be made based on the population size of the individual local government bodies, the infrastructure and services they provide, the revenue base of the various bodies and their capacity to utilise the resources provided.

The local government electoral system, a 50/50 proportional representation/constituency split, agreed to by the PPP/C and PNCR which are represented on the Task Force, will see a move away from the proportional representation (PR) approach.

The law currently provides for a local government commission to be established but there was no enabling legislation, rules or regulations. The Task Force has been mandated to come up with proposals in this regard.

The commission, in keeping with the mandate of the constitution, Alexander said, would be looking at all matters relating to the staffing of local government organs and dispute resolution within and between local government organs.

With no commission in place, he said, the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development has been appointing staff to man the administrative regions as well as functioning as the regulatory body dealing with dispute resolution.