IMCs are no colonial aberrations

Jan 23, 2012 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Colonial administration was exploitative and oppressive. It denied the working class their just dues, but on no account can it be said to have been incompetent.
When the British left this country, Georgetown was a fine city. It was well administered.
Georgetown was a model city, the pride and envy of the Caribbean. Today it is the worst city in the entire region and it has been this way dating way back to the 1980’s.
The colonial authorities had no need for an Interim Management Committee. But typical of the excuse making in this country, we have a tendency to deflect our own failings onto the colonial authorities.
Under British Guiana, things were not bright for the average working man. But the council of the Georgetown municipality was effectively run. Thus, there was no need for an IMC. If any councillor did not perform, that person was a goner.
In those days, there was no influx of pavement dwellers, no widespread breaches of the zoning and building codes, no disorder and no piling up of garbage in the city. As such there was no need at all to contemplate the installation of an Interim Management Committee (IMCs).
IMCs cannot therefore be considered as a colonial aberration. IMCs were a direct response to the PNC incompetence because it was after the PNC left the city in a state of disintegration and failed to hold local government elections that the PPP when it assumed office was forced to establish an IMC to take over the affairs of the city which had fallen into dire straits. The PNC could not effectively run the city when it held political office much less when it is out of office.
That early IMC of Georgetown eventually gave way to local government elections but since 1993 there have been no repeat because of political gridlock between the parties in agreeing to reforms.
For nineteen years, there has been little progress in terms of local government reform. Despite this, many people still harbor hopes of there being political cooperation under some tripartite agreement.
IMCs are not a colonial aberration. And they are nothing new. Both the PNCR and the PPP agreed to an IMC for the Mayor and Town Council of Linden and no complaints were made then.
These are, of course, public bodies and it is within the right of the administration to take action to resolve the problems of public bodies.
An IMC of course is no substitute for democratic representation, that is, it is no substitute for the holding of free and fair local government elections. But it has been utilized in the local government system on more than one occasion and in a free Guyana. So please, spare us the nonsense about it being a colonial aberration.
The PPP administration has imposed an IMC on the administration of local cricket under the pretext of a court decision which ruled that the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) and its associate Boards had no legal personality, which is different from them being illegal.
The irony of the PPP’s IMC in cricket is that while it seeks to dissolve the GCB on the grounds of lack of legal personality, its IMC is itself comprised of persons representing associate bodies of the GCB which themselves were ruled not to have legal personality. The question can also be raised as to whether this IMC itself has legal personality, that is, can it sue or be sued?
What is certain is that there is no way that the West Indies Cricket Board is going to recognize an IMC, no matter who the government appoints to that body. The GCB remains the bona fide representative of cricket in Guyana and no amount of threats about not making the national stadium at Providence available for international cricket in Guyana is going to change that.
In fact, the authorities in Guyana has committed a major blunder is even suggesting that the use of the stadium could be withdrawn if Guyana is in any way penalized because of the IMC.
There are thirteen venues in the Caribbean competing for the hosting of international matches involving the West Indies and other teams. There is no longer in guarantee that Guyana will be entitled to either a test match or one day international every time and international teams tours here. So we are in no position to be issuing disguised threats.
In fact, we should avoid doing that because there are no many other venues lining up to host matches. But like so many other things, we shoot ourselves in the foot by trying to arm-wrestle the WICB.
These sorts of tactics are self- defeating. They take us nowhere. And most definitely they are also not colonial aberration.

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