LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS WILL CHANGE NOTHING

Sep 27, 2014 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Are we fooling ourselves into believing that local government elections will change things in Guyana? What will it change?
Local government in Guyana faces three main challenges. Having local government elections will not fundamentally address these challenges.
The first challenge is that the local government architecture in Guyana is too expansive. We are a country with less than a million people, yet we have more than a dozen NDS, ten Regional administrations, and six municipalities. We have neighborhood democratic councils responsible for a few thousand people, and then we have regional administrations. On top of this there are municipalities. The largest municipality is located in a town which for all intents and purposes is no more than two square miles and has less than 300,000 persons.  How amidst such a small population, can there be such an elaborate local government system?
Have we not learnt anything from the British? The village system which they established was superintended by village councils that did not work. These councils remained subservient and dependent on central government? We have had years of negotiations on local government reform. These negotiations have not fundamentally altered the architecture of local government. The system for example has not been revamped so as to grant greater devolution of powers.
Even with the new formula for allocating revenues to local government organs, local government bodies will remain dependent and subservient to central government. Local government elections will not change this dependent relationship because the relationship between central government and local government bodies remains one of master/servant.
Neither will local government polls create viable local government entities. One of the major challenges facing the local government system in Guyana is the overcoming historical legacies.  The village system in Guyana was created around sugar plantations. The main historical bugbear faced by villages was the high cost of drainage and irrigation. Under colonial Guyana, the village councils could never afford to carry the cost of drainage. There is no difference today.
NDCs are too small and their resource base is too weak to become economically viable entities. The municipalities also cannot be converted into public corporations as is the case in some Caribbean countries. Their population base and catchment is too small to allow any such corporation to be viable.
Viability is dependent not just on financial resources but equally about the quality of human resources. Local government organs will always end up having to compete with the private sector and the government to attract the best human resources in the country. There is a dearth of human resources in communities. It is a myth that the villages and municipalities are awash with available administrative and management skills.
They are not. In most cases, these local government organs end up scraping the bottom of the barrel in order to find people to carry out the management of their various local government bodies. Most of the highly skilled and qualified persons are either out of the country, working for government or within the private sector. Not much is left for the municipalities to tap into.
Local government elections will not throw up new talent. This is myth. The system will continue to be afflicted by lack of human resources.
Look at Georgetown. The markets ended up in a rundown state; the cemetery was neglected and allowed to turn into a jungle and the drains are all cluttered up. Garbage is now all over the place and there is widespread illegal squatting and vending. This is the legacy of the last local government elections.  Had it not been for government intervention, the capital would have been turned into shanty town.
The third main challenge is that local government elections will reproduce at another level the political confrontation and stagnation between the government and the main opposition. Local government elections will be a two-party race between the PNCR and the PPPC. Forget about the AFC! The system is such that the AFC will not win a single municipality or NDC. The AFC will not also hold any balance of power in any NDC or municipality.
Essentially therefore, what will happen is that local government elections will be a straight fight between the two main parties. Local government organs emerging out of any local government elections will therefore be a battleground between the two main parties. It will lead to the same old political paralysis and stagnation. It will perpetuate ethnic voting. In other words, it will perpetuate the same rotten political culture which so many people wish to escape.
APNU wants local government elections in order to avoid going to general and regional elections. The AFC wants general elections to avoid the total humiliation it will suffer if local government polls are held. The PPPC does not at this stage want either local government or general elections, because its financiers believe that local government elections are a waste of resources and because the party wants to have its full term.
Why do you the people want local government elections? What difference will it make to your lives and to your communities? Not much! That much I can tell you!

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