Dear Editor,
I refer to Clairmont Lye’s letter carried in your May 12 issue in which he highlights the failure of the Lethem Power Co Chairman as well as Region Nine Regional Executive Officer and Regional Chairman to take precautionary measures to deal with the likelihood of flooding and its dire consequences in the region (‘The power cuts in Lethem…‘). The residents of the region, including Mr Lye now have to suffer the consequences arising from the failure of the authorities and their lack of foresight to plan adequately or in advance.
Clairmont alludes also to the possible effects of La Niña and wonders what role if any, the mega-salaried climate change consultants played as it relates to the residents of Region Nine and the humiliation and desperation people feel and the traumatic effect on their lives that the severe flood such as the one last year, causes.
Clairmont concludes by saying that “everyone concerned is woefully incompetent” and ends with the call for us to have snap elections. While I share his frustration, I do not agree with the former or that the latter will solve the problems. My own view is that it is the system that is responsible for the failures and it is this that needs reforming.
Editor, Guyana is too large to effectively be run or managed from the centre. Fortunately, however, our constitution provides for regional autonomy, local democracy and local government, but this is persistently being honoured in the breach. Article 12 states that “local government by freely elected representatives of the people is an integral part of the democratic organization of the state.”
The chapter on Local Democracy and local democratic organs – Articles 71-78.B – is explicit as it relates to the concept of devolution, decentralization and autonomy of the regions. Permit me please to quote just Articles 75, 76 and 77 which state respectively as follows:
Art. 75: Parliament shall provide that local democratic organs shall be autonomous and take decisions which are binding upon their agencies and institutions, and upon the communities and citizens of their areas.
Art. 76: Parliament may provide for regional democratic councils to raise their own revenues and to dispose of them for the benefit and welfare of their areas.
Art. 77: The development programme of each region shall be integrated into the national development plans, and the Government shall allocate funds to each region to enable it to implement its development programme.
All told, however, the constitution dictates a comprehensive system of local democracy as well as regional autonomy and the decentralization of power, something that this as well as previous PPP administrations have demonstrated that they have little or no interest in. Instead of decentralization they are using the power and resources of the state to practise the opposite. At present this Ministry (Local Government and Regional Development) has 2 Ministers (Ganga Persaud and Norman Whittaker) as well as 2 former Ministers as highly paid advisers (Harripersaud Nokta and Clinton Collymore) and they are all engaged in a destructive and chaotic agenda, dismembering and dismantling duly elected local democratic organs (NDCs, etc) and replacing them with handpicked IMCs. I repeat, the government is on an active campaign to undermine, usurp and bypass the authority of RDCs and NDCs to suit their partisan agenda. In so doing they are practising violence against the constitution as well as the population. APNU in its press release of April 4, 2012 called on them to stop this campaign, but clearly it has fallen on deaf ears.
Clairmont would be aware that the government through its acolytes and using state resources was just involved in a campaign and exercise across Region Nine where they visited all Amerindian villages, spreading misinformation and propaganda in relation to opposition cuts to the 2012 budget. They could not be concerned about disaster preparedness even though our councillor Carl Parker was calling for regional authorities and the Civil Defence Commission to address measures to deal with the likelihood of flooding, which was real.
Editor, Clairmont would be even more aware and conscious than I am that at our general election the ballot is divided in two, and electors are asked to mark two Xs, one to elect a president and the other for leaders to manage their respective regions.
Editor, Mr Lye’s words and sentiments are eerily reminiscent of my own made in my recent maiden presentation to the National Assembly on March 15, 2012 (Hansard Part 3, 4th Sitting) where I said that people are tired and fed up of excuses and that they are looking and paying keen attention and asking themselves why it is that national leaders cannot put aside their partisan positions and act in the national interest. More recently Editor, I stressed in my budget presentation on April 11, 2012 in the National Assembly, that if the RDCs are empowered and allowed to act in a truly democratic manner and if they are meaningfully engaged by central government and if genuine and sincere collaboration exists, then a lot of the unhealthy things that are taking place, things which do not serve the public’s interest, would be prevented.
Editor, climate change is real. Flooding in the Rupununi can very well be annual or perennial. This is not something academic; people’s lives and livelihood are involved and it requires an urgent, meaningful and sincere national conversation to deal with this and other problems. The same applies as well to each of the other nine regions of Guyana. This is why I say that genuine and sincere national leadership is required. In this process people (irrespective of their political affiliation) have to be engaged and constitutional provisions have to be honoured.
I invite Clairmont to be a part of this process as I am aware that his experience in these matters far exceeds mine.
Yours faithfully,
Ronald Bulkan
Shadow Spokesperson (APNU)
Local Government and Region
Development
