Emphasising that the Region Eight Regional Democratic Council (RDC) has no say in the employment of the Regional Executive Officer (REO), Minister of Local Government Ganga Persaud says he is awaiting a report on a no-confidence motion filed against Ronald Harsawack before considering what action to take.
“I haven’t received anything from the council as yet. When I get it and have looked at it, then I can respond. However, definitively, the RDC had no authority when it comes to employment of the REO,” Persaud said on Monday.
He was at the time responding to a query by Stabroek News about possible action by his ministry in light of the no-confidence motion brought by APNU and passed by a majority of the members of the RDC against Harsawack. Eight of the 15 members of the RDC backed the motion, which was based on a series of complaints against the REO.
Harsawack was accused of issuing “false” information about the vandalism of pipelines and the charges for the services of the RDC’s bulldozer, as well as failing to carry out decisions and issue correspondence for the council and bypassing the RDC chairman Mark Crawford and the council to grant permission for construction of buildings.
The motion also cited Harsawack’s failure to send the RDC’s excavator to clear garbage build-up at the dumpsite when asked to do so by the Regional Chairman (RC), failure to use RDC equipment to do maintenance work to roads when asked to do so by Crawford, his absence from the second RDC meeting for half a day without nominating an officer to act on his behalf and failing to give an excuse to the council in the following session for his absence.
Harsawack is also the Clerk of the RDC and he is responsible for delivering correspondence to Minister Ganga Persaud on behalf of the council. As a result, APNU feels that that the motion has not yet reached the minister’s desk as “he must be dragging his foot on getting it to the minister knowing the contents,” APNU Shadow Local Government Minister Ronald Bulkan told this newspaper.
The law does not compel the minister to act on the no-confidence motion and any action is left to his (the minister’s) discretion, Bulkan reiterated. However, he said that the RDC expects that the minister would give effect to a majority decision of the council. “We are not seeking to say who should be the REO…We are not seeking to appoint a new REO. We are simply saying ‘We have no confidence in this man minister. What will you do now? Will you respect the views of the majority of the Region 8 people and act accordingly? Or will you ignore the views of the majority of the region’s populace and hide,” he added.
Shortly after Harsawack’s appointment, Regional Chairman Crawford had started complaining that he was being sidelined in his capacity. He subsequently filed a formal complaint in April of this year to Persaud.
The minister had said that he had spoken to both parties and advised that they put aside their differences for the good of their constituents. “If they don’t work together it can be counterproductive to the development of [the region] and to the detriment of the people. I told both parties this… so we are going to give them two months and see if the issues are put to rest, if not we go back to the drawing board,” he said.
Critics have argued that the present local government system stymies the regions as the REO is appointed by the ministry and reports to it. Councils have over the years clashed with REOs on numerous issues. The present REO was moved to Region 8 from Region 9 after the last election. It appeared to be a move by the government to counteract the opposition gains in the region, which was won at the regional level by the AFC.
