The Minister of Local Government is a very busy man. There he sits, ensconced behind his capacious official desk positively snowed under by a blizzard of petitions from all over the country (especially opposition areas), complaining about non-functioning Neighbourhood Democratic Councils. And the petitioners all want their NDCs to be replaced by Interim Management Committees. Dealing with this would be a challenge for even the most stalwart of government officials, but Minister Ganga Persaud was never one to cringe in the face of adversity. He has dutifully set about the onerous task of identifying any number of competent, experienced citizens in the various areas, and has installed them in communities like Bartica and Kwakwani. It is, of course, one of those quirks of the times, that most of these upstanding, able citizens he has so painstakingly selected are associated at some level with the PPP/C, but then this is only because such talent cannot be found anywhere beyond the pale of Freedom House.
What the Minister would really like to see, of course, is an IMC in Georgetown. In fact, this has been confessed quite openly, although on this occasion he has not been the recipient of a petition with a list of signatures long enough to wrap around the Parliament Building. Nevertheless, he senses the desire of the citizenry to have one of his IMCs installed. But the capital is not a Corentyne village or Bartica, and perspicacious man that he is, he recognizes that sweeping away the M&CC might not be as straightforward as causing a rural NDC to do a disappearing act. So while he waits for a propitious moment, the Minister has contented himself with replacing senior personnel in the City Hall administration despite a chorus of objections from those entrenched around the Horseshoe Table about his choice for Town Clerk. But then he knows what his powers are (and theirs aren’t) and he can proceed with the confidence that only certainty about the rightness of one’s actions confers.
And just in case anyone should be harbouring the unholy suspicion that the Ministry of Local Government is less than committed to local government democracy, they were answered last week by the Minister laying two local government bills in the National Assembly (two more are promised before the recess). It is not important that when they materialized in Parliament in their first incarnation last year, they did not receive support from the opposition, and if this time around the majority parties are still dissatisfied and pass amendments to which the PPP/C does not accede, then they will be the ones responsible for holding up local government elections, not the administration. In that eventuality, of course, with no forward movement on local government legislation, the Minister will have no option but to proceed with his dedicated work of rescuing local communities with his IMCs.
While the above might be a caricature of how the government wants its actions to be perceived, it nevertheless is not entirely removed from what it promotes in relation to its motives. The problem is that the people cannot be fooled any longer. There is no area of government which has been as subject to political games as that of local government. And in the sphere of local government itself, there is no municipality or region or NDC area which has been the victim of so many political games over the last 18 years as Georgetown. It is not just the residents of the capital, however, who recognize the games for what they are, and are weary of them; many citizens around the country feel the same way. It is for this reason that the governing party’s propaganda makes no impression where regional and local matters are concerned.
Exactly why a government in a weakened position should be seeking confrontation on local government issues when it is already engaged on so many fronts is something of a puzzle. While it is perfectly true that there has been a breakdown of the local government system, and it is also true that the rural and urban populations want functioning authorities, any interim arrangements have to be effected in consultation with the communities concerned. The government cannot make the breakdown an excuse to engage in its tired, worn ploys. Even in the capital, which admittedly is a disgrace, there is little appetite for the Minister to do one of his installations, if only because courtesy of his precedessor, the nature of the game which was being played was publicly, if unintentionally, acknowledged. In any case, citizens hold the government equally responsible with the city council for the state of Georgetown, if not more so.
One of the several lessons the ruling party should derive from events in Linden, is that there has been an emergence of local leaders, and that the situation there is not governed by decisions made by party hierarchies in the capital. In our current circumstances the administration would be unwise to dismiss the possibility that this development cannot replicate itself elsewhere. Furthermore, the main opposition party is not what it was in earlier years. It too has been seriously weakened, although Freedom House has continued to issue silly press releases blaming one or the other opposition party for the situation. If it has not realized by now that the Georgetown-based opposition has only a very limited purchase on Linden events, then it has not come to terms with the fact that the ground has shifted under its feet. As such, the traditional political games to which the PPP is addicted, may not play as well as they did before, because its opposing number does not have the control it had before over its traditional constituency.
In its futile attempt to hang onto power at all levels in the society – witness what is happening in Region 8, where the AFC has a majority in the Regional Council, and the government appointed Regional Executive Officer is being accused of stymieing the council’s decisions – the government is finding that it is losing more and more control. It will not be possible to reimpose that again, so the ruling party would be advised to make a total reassessment of its customary assumptions. At the very minimum, what the Linden experience should tell them is that there will be no resolution without genuine negotiation – and, it should be added, concessions. Where power is less centralized and more diffused throughout a society, negotiating skills are at a premium and the kind of games at the political level which have gone on here for so long become counter-productive. But then that is how democracies work in other parts of the world, namely, through negotiation and concessions.
If Minister Persaud and the government he serves have any sense, they will cease the imposition of the IMCs, and listen to what it is the communities want in the interim. Furthermore, they will really dedicate themselves to coming to agreement in the National Assembly for the passage of local government legislation. What this country needs is rational government, and it needs it in the local arena as much as in the national one. The first step in this direction is local government elections, held under a regime which allows some genuine autonomy for local bodies, and some guaranteed form of funding which does not depend on the political whims of the party holding office. If in due course this throws up local leaders who are not directly answerable to Freedom House or Sophia, say, then that is all to the good. That is what democracy at the grass roots level is all about.
