Dear Editor,
The Local Government Commission (LGC) got our attention last week on the defective manner it appointed a town clerk. Likely, within the month, the majority party on the commission will repair this defect and the LGC will cease to make further news — until the next bit of “nonsense”, as Stabroek News put it in its Friday editorial. The LGC is now four years old (granted, the new membership is only months on the job). But from its early days, no signs emerged that the commission focused on how to improve the quality of local governance. Yet, it is one of several constitutional bodies on which taxpayers have spent billions of dollars collectively with little return. I therefore call again for an impact assessment of these entities as part of a comprehensive review of all the 1999/2000 constitutional changes (https://www.stabroeknews.com/2019/10/25/opinion/letters/we-need-a-systematic-evaluation-of-the-1999-2000-constitutional-reforms/). Any fresh round of constitutional reform would be a wishful exercise if not informed by an analysis of the fate of the 1999/2000 amendments.
But to focus for now on the LGC and the other commissions. They have not delivered as envisioned for several reasons:
The nation has lost sight of, and the enthusiasm for, the transformative role these commissions were set up to fulfil, as discussed during the multi-stakeholder constitution reform process of 1999. To illustrate: the mission of the LGC extends far beyond mundane staff appointments. It encompasses proposing policies and practices to promote effective local governance as well as enhancing the capacity of local government organs (see section 13 of the LGC Act). Similarly, the Ethnic Relations Commission’s (ERC’s) mandate reaches as far as pursuing the enactment of specific legislative and administrative measures to entrench equality of opportunity and non-discrimination in public entities. Blame for this loss of vision and appetite must rest with the political parties and the several civic organizations that sat on the reform commission (such as the TUC, the religious organizations, and the private sector). Unfortunately, commissions, once up and running, hardly rose to overcome this problem.
Second, the mechanisms to appoint commissioners have turned out to be flawed. For the LGC, the mechanism whereby the government and the opposition parties select 7 of the 8 commissioners has led to the LGC being no more imaginative than the respective party headquarters. For the ERC, WGEC (Women and Gender Rights Commission) and the other rights commissions, the multi-stakeholder mechanism has produced commissions with weak expertise and narrow focus. The mechanism used to appoint the public procurement commissioners may have avoided these jeopardies by requiring them to have relevant knowledge. The best approach may lie in a marriage between stakeholder representation and expertise.
Third, appointees do not work full time on commissions. Other jobs are their main preoccupation and income. However, the mandates of these commissions are too large for part-time commissioners.
Fourth, the shortness of tenure (3 or 4 years) and the sloth of (re)appointments have dented institutional continuity, capacity building, and memory. The ERC, for example, was dormant from 2007 until resurrected by the Coalition government in 2015. At present, several commissions have no appointees.
Fifth, the secretariats of commissions have not evolved beyond performing mostly routine administrative duties. As such, they have not accumulated technical capacity in the subject area of commissions, such as in human rights, conflict resolution, or good governance.
Sixth, only on rare occasion has there been public pressure on commissions. The starkest example is the recent public outcry over the ERC’s apparent impotence during the 2020 WCB incident.
To be sure, many good citizens have served and continue to serve as commissioners. But time and politics have reduced the grand mission of these entities to mere side shows. To recapture the spirit that inspired their founding would require untypical Guyanese drive and creativity. At least for now, let’s start by asking the LGC that the next time it makes the news it must be to inform us of the measures it is taking to, for one, building the technical capacity of local government councils and, for two, ensuring the government increase the paltry subvention to councils by several million dollars next year.
Sincerely,
Sherwood Lowe
