A petition bearing signatures, purporting to be of 1,200 residents of Region 9, has been dispatched to President David Granger asking that he remove Regional Executive Officer (REO) Carl Parker due to unprofessional conduct.
The letter, which is signed in the first instance by Deputy Toshao of Awarewanau Village Berlinda Duncan, “on behalf of the aforementioned people of Region 9” urges the President to act as the “people have been suffering for months and the situation has become unbearable.”
“We can now only depend on your good office to ensure that the Ministry of Communities corrects this anomaly and violation of our rights,” it says.
In the petition, Parker is accused of having committed an “accumulation of actions which are discriminatory against [the Amerindian] people. “Mr Parker has been discriminating and targeting Amerindians in Region 9 since he was appointed to the office of REO during the course of 2015,” it charges.
It further accuses Parker of 14 infractions, including refusing to accept the appointments by the Public Service Commission in which he claimed to have no confidence.
Parker is also accused of barring of the region’s staff from speaking to and being in the company of the Regional Chairman and Vice Chairman; meddling in the affairs of Amerindian Village Councils; disregarding the decisions made by the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) and failure to provide requisite financial and status reports and minutes of the Regional Tender Board to the RDC.
In an invited comment to Stabroek News Parker categorically denied that accusations. “Of course they are not true,” he said adding that he does not believe Duncan wrote the letter. “I know that she did not send or pen that letter,” he said. He, however, refused to give any further comments until he has officially responded to the recipients of the petition especially President Granger.
The petition has found support from the Guyana Empowered Peoples’ Action Network (GEPAN) and the Amerindian Action Movement of Guyana (TAAMOG), which have written to Minister of Communities Ronald Bulkan saying that they stand strong with the residents of Region 9 in support of the petition.
“We are calling on your office to intervene in granting the people their request. The people of Region 9 have been complaining about the REO’s performance for now almost a year and their plight should no longer go unanswered,” they said in a joint statement to the minister.
