By Andre Haynes
The government has advised donors against releasing funds for local government election programmes, while work on crucial legislative reforms is still to be completed.
A reliable source told Stabroek News that government has informed donors against releasing funds for programmes related to the long-delayed polls, until it gives the go ahead. The Guyana Elections Commis-sion (Gecom), after months of preparation to run off the polls, has now turned its attention fully to launching a new continuous registration exercise in September.
Stabroek News was informed that there is concern about the delay in completing the reforms and although government spokesman Dr Roger Luncheon had said it was still possible to hold elections this year, there is no data to support the assertion. Gecom earlier this year completed a Claims and Objections period to produce a Register of Voters but has since put its public education campaign on hold as it awaits the completion of the work on the reforms. The commission had been seeking donor aid to support its public education programmes. This newspaper understands that some donors have expressed weariness about releasing funds without the identification of a date for the polls. There has also been concern about the approaching cycle of preparation for general elections, which are due by the end of November next year. Meanwhile, at the parliamentary level, there has been no movement on the remaining reform legislation—Fiscal Transfers Bill, the Local Government (Amendment) Bill and the Municipal and District Councils (Amendment) Bill—still before a special select committee. When asked on Thursday why the committee has not resumed its work, Local Government Minister Khellawan Lall explained that President Bharrat Jagdeo and Opposition Leader Robert Corbin are still having discussions, which take precedence. He said the talks might be oriented around issues that were not resolved at the level of the bi-partisan Local Government Reform Task Force, which pre-dated the select committee.
Jagdeo and Corbin had met recently to revive the efforts to complete the reforms, months after the PPP agreed to a final attempt at consensus with the parliamentary opposition parties.
AFC MP David Patterson, who is a member of the committee, said his party has not been part of any subsequent meetings to conclude the reforms. He noted his party’s previous disappointment with PNCR leader Corbin over “secret meetings” with the President, and he added that there has been a repeat. “The same thing is happening again,” he said. “And the parliamentary system is in shambles.” Corbin had earlier canvassed the support of the party as part of a request by the joint opposition for the completion of the reforms prior to the holding of polls. He suggested that a deal could be brokered to conclude reforms without input from any of the other parties and he decried the situation.
When the bills were referred to parliament, President Jagdeo said it was in keeping with a transparent approach. “I am finished and done with this approach where members of the PPP and members of the PNC, they sit in a close huddle outside of the glare of the public eye and public scrutiny and take eight years to conclude…” he said. “We want it done transparently, in the public eye, these future discussions; so that if there is any pedantic behaviour on the part of either of the two parties, then the public can see this and judge for themselves.”
President Jagdeo has publicly maintained that general elections must be held next year. Asked if the government would forego the holding of local government elections to ensure the holding of national elections in 2011, he said recently it was an issue that had to be addressed during the engagement with all the opposition parties.
“I’m told that there is some legal issue against holding two elections in the same year, so then it means that we have a narrow window if that is accurate. And then it’s not wise, probably, to do two elections in a single year,” he said.
Local government elections have been due since 1997. The Joint Task Force on Local Government Reform was set up in 2001 by agreement between President Jagdeo and then opposition leader Desmond Hoyte. The task force, made up of representatives of the PPP/C and the PNCR, had initially been given a one-year mandate for the completion of local government reforms but it has been reconstituted at least twice since then to complete the process.
