APNU says poor physical infrastructure due to PPP power centralism

Mar 15, 2014 News

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…says Local Government Elections is the answer     
A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) is blaming the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) for failing to improve and invest in the country’s physical infrastructure. It added that the holding of local government elections is the solution.
The opposition coalition, during a press briefing yesterday at the Office of the Leader of the Opposition expressed through its leader Brig. David Granger, the need for there to be Local Government Elections to offset the centralized power of the PPP.
This centralized power, APNU says, has damaged the local democratic organs and has caused the degeneration of the country’s infrastructure.

According to Granger an “autocratic, bureaucratic, centralized, meddlesome Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development [MLGRD] has emerged in place of vibrant, decentralized organs” and stressed that MLGRD is incapable of promoting economic development of Municipalities and Neighbourhoods.
Granger said that MLGRD seems obsessed with the day to day micro management of local organs and unable to cope with its long term countrywide responsibility for encouraging economic development.
The opposition collation pointed to airstrips, bridges, canals, roadways and stellings and spoke extensively on how those essential amenities have degenerated because the local democratic organs are not functioning properly.
APNU said that it is convinced that the holding of Local Government Elections is essential for the restoration of local democracy and, consequently the re-energizing of local economies.
The opposition coalition expressed that the PPP/C needs to radically change its approach to Local Government and Regional Development. It needs to introduce a new policy for the rehabilitation and construction of safe airstrips, bridges, canals, roads, stellings and other physical infrastructure.
Speaking also during the press conference was APNU’s Executive Member Joseph Harmon who has responsibility for infrastructure and development.
Harmon made mention of APNU’s manifesto when he articulated that the public infrastructure of this country must be people centered, “in other words public infrastructure must serve the people and the people must be the center of it and it’s not that the people must serve the public infrastructure, this is what is really happening.”
He further expressed that all of the big infrastructural projects that are termed “transformational” have not been transforming the lives of ordinary people “and this is what Local Government Elections are meant to do, to affect the lives of people in their communities… we have to focus on our human development when we are talking about public infrastructure and local government.
Local government is about local democracy and unless you can develop the local communities, then it makes no sense we undertake major projects when in the local communities where people’s lives are affected you have no emphasis on it” Harmon outlined.
Right Direction
According to Granger, the appointment of Keith Lowenfield as the new Chief Elections Officer (CEO) of GECOM (Guyana Elections Commission) is a step in the right direction.
He said that APNU had serious problems with the previous CEO Gocool Boodoo “and we stated those problems and we feel the Mr. Lowenfield will be going in with 14 years of experience and with unblemished records within the elections commission, we are confident that he will do a better job than the previous man and we look forward to cooperating with him and having clean elections without controversy and mathematical errors.”
Speaking to the August 1, 2014 deadline for the holding of Local Government Elections, Granger said that APNU was assured by a statement from the Chairman of the elections commission Dr. Steve Surujbally that once he is given the word by the government, elections could be held within six months.
“We are gearing for that; the National Assembly has spoken. It has ordained; it has passed a resolution; it has resolved that elections be held no later than August 1, 2014, so the clock is ticking and we feel that elections are not just ornamental they are essential to the economic development of the principalities and the neighbourhoods.”
According to Granger, APNU “felt that at the time the Bill was introduced it was possible to have the local government elections by August 1.”
“I know that there is a registration cycle which will begin week after next and that cycle has to be allowed to run its course. After that, there would be claims and objections so we would expect that if Government is serious, Local Government Elections can be held within a reasonably short time.”

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