Stabroek News has invited the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance for Change to submit a weekly column on local government and related matters. The PPP/C has declined the offer. Only APNU has submitted a column this week.
The People’s Progressive Party/Civic administration has a notorious fondness for uprooting elected town and neighbourhood councils and installing interim management committees – IMCs – as a means of managing the affairs of local communities. This is not only in complete violation of the rights of local citizens but a fundamental betrayal of any principles of fairness, democracy or transparency. No other Caribbean country would even consider encouraging, much less actively participating, in such flagrant arbitrariness.
APNU, in the midst of the PPP/C’s orgy of installations of IMCs in 2012, issued a press statement drawing attention to the clear contradictions in the process. The government was claiming to uphold principles of legality and due process while acting in flagrant violation of them by insisting on its singular right to do so. APNU’s press statement noted that IMCs were not intended to ‘de-centralise’ but, rather, to ‘re-centralise’ local administration since its choices were known, hand-picked supporters, of the ruling party. Such a process, under the circumstances,
