Local Govt. legislation lone item on govt.’s parliamentary agenda for next week

Sep 05, 2015 News

The new government continues to go to lengths to make good on a promise to hold Local Government Elections before the end of this year.
In this regard, the administration has opted to, just one day before the National Assembly goes into recess, schedule a sitting to facilitate the passing of one piece of Local Government legislation.
The Bill is designed to, according to Minister of Communities, Ronald Bulkan, “further clear the way for elections to—hopefully—be held this year.” He stressed that this is in keeping with the desire of the administration.
Therefore, Prime Minister, Moses Nagamootoo is set to move the “Suspension of Standing Order no. 54.”
The Bill will be piloted by Bulkan. Its purpose is to amend the Local Authorities (Elections) Act.
Contacted yesterday, Bulkan, said that the Bill will bridge some minor gasps in the existing legislation.
Noting that the last Local Government Election was held in 1994, the Minister said that the legislation used then had empowered the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to extract the voters’ list from the Official List of Electors used for the 1990 General and Regional Elections.
The new Bill empowers GECOM to use the National Register of Registrants (NRR).
The legislation will also transfer some authorities from the Minister of Communities (previously Minister of Local Government) to GECOM. This, Bulkan said, widens the scope of the officers of the commission.
Bulkan contended that the Local Government System has collapsed. That is why Government is treating the holding of Local Government Election as a priority, he added.
“Central Government cannot efficiently manage the country. We need 71 functioning local democratic organs.”
The National Assembly officially goes into recess on September 10 for a period of one month. Parliament is scheduled to reconvene on October 10, 2015. During the period of recess; there will be no sittings of the National Assembly or meeting of Parliamentary Committees and/or sub committees.
Gail Teixeira, Chief Whip of the PPP/C, the same Party that stayed away from the National Assembly for over two months, had told the House, “Sir…I just want to say that the House has an enormous amount of work to do.
This is the people’s House and the people’s business that we are addressing. Whilst we think that we deserve a rest and I’m sure all politicians deserve a rest at some point, nevertheless we have a lot of work to come back and do here.
“So whilst we are not opposing the motion for recess, we believe that we must hasten and start a lot of work that has to be dealt with,” she told the Members of Parliament.

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Local Govt. legislation lone item on govt.’s parliamentary agenda for next week

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