President Bharrat Jagdeo has announced that government will next week table one of the local government amendment bills to facilitate the holding of polls later in the year.
Speaking with reporters yesterday, Jagdeo said the bill would be tabled next Thursday, allowing opportunity for public debate as well as consultation on the legislation. He indicated that the bill would be referred to a select committee for a short period -he estimated two weeks- before it is passed into law.
The main opposition PNCR has maintained that the administration has deliberately sought to frustrate the implementation of local government reform, by torpedoing a bipartisan task force that had been trying to reach agreement on four pieces of legislation.
The task force had been working since 2001, while polls have been due since 1997.
Jagdeo said yesterday that during that time, the government had “pandered” and “consulted” too much, trying to reach an agreement with the opposition.
Saying the PPP was uncomfortable with the decentralization of power that local government reform was supposed to allow, the PNCR has accused the governing party of wanting to place the process within the domain of the National Assembly, where it could use its majority to force passage of a bill which suits its purposes.
