Was there a consultation for such appointments?

Sep 10, 2015 Letters

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Dear Editor,
We read with interest and a great deal of concern the announcement from the Prime Minister’s Office of the appointment of four Liaison Officers intended to bring the former to local communities.
It is unfortunate that since this was the quid pro quo for the appointment there was little explanation for it, especially in light of the fact that the PM insisted that his new $22 million dollar Prado was intended to take him to the varied parts of the country without much hindrance. What is galling is the absence of a document to indicate the substantive reasons for the appointment.
Was there a consultation for such appointments, and if so with whom other than some residents at Whim after the visit of the PM and another of his colleagues over the weekend 6-7 September, 2015? We would expect that a minimal consultation would have produced a document to indicate the areas of need and the requisite skills required to address them?
It is supposed that that would have been followed by job descriptions to indicate the requisite specialities, educational background/requirements, professional skills and experience along with the package of remunerations, perks, benefits, concessions, etc attached to the offices involved. Moreover, since these are or should be public appointments, there would also be the usual quid pro quo between the rights and benefits of the office/position and the expected duties and obligation that are not simply the outcome of a whim or prerogative – official or otherwise. There is nothing here to suggest that any consideration was given to these issues
In other words it would appear that the appointments were nothing other than a whim. Maybe that’s where they’re coming from?
Which of the many problems that afflict our communities are these officers assigned to consider and handle? What does the match between demand and requisite skill looks like?
Is there some kind of a priority that has been assigned?
In Region Six, for example, we have a surfeit of problems ranging from piracy, drugs, truancy, corruption, back-tracking, smuggling, domestic and spousal abuse, and if our newspapers are any indication, our suicide rate makes us the capital of the world. What are the skills (experience, professional, educational, etc.) of the designated appointee to match the issues raised by these problems?
In Region Six, we have several institutional sources of authority that have emerged over the years to deal with specific issues of security, governance, drainage, environment, etc. including, RDC, NDC, municipality, and their attendant sub divisions. In addition, we also have national institutions that have been there for some time to provide support to local communities – NDIA, Sea Defense Board, EPA, CH&PA, etc.
Which among these require support to bring up to national standards? What skills are required to ensure those standards? And who, in any case, decides on the divide between existing statutory authority and Liaison Officer?
Existing Experience suggests: No Contest. PM’s Office Always trumps local Sea Defense engineer.
But the more vexing question and the one that has been at the source of considerable anguish in Region Six for the past ten years is the relationship between the PM’s Regional Liaison Officers and existing institutions.
It did not take long after the elections in 2001 and the appointment of two Presidential Liaison Officers in Region Six (popularly known locally as Mutt and Jeff) that Ministerial authority came to trump everything – Prime Ministerial and Presidential three and five times over.
Expectedly, Local and Regional Governments lost whatever little autonomy/authority they had and quickly yielded to their colleagues from Central Government. Ministerial outreach became the central instrument for a new kind of accumulation.
Businessmen and those with ambition quickly understood how the system worked – easier to convince a Liaison Officer, palms fully greased, with direct access to President, PM or Minister, than to face down an NDC meeting and some grumbling citizens, when you want a piece of land, a favour for special concession, a trench/canal diverted, overlook environmental regulation, prevent agencies from asserting their authority.
Residents in one Upper Corentyne community, after nearly ten years, are still trying to get a full hearing after one Ministerial authority for the “go ahead” to build, surrendered more than 20 acres of private property to party squatters initiated by an enterprising businessman. The question here is: Who holds the Liaison Officer’s foot to the fire while he has the ear of the PM?
Those of us who live and work in our communities are aware that there is considerable room for improvement in present standards of public service. But it isn’t a new boss that is required. What we know and have had to live with is the duplicity and complicity that follows from the abysmal lack of coordination among existing agencies. The previous administration used the resulting frustration of residents as a strategic tool for intervention and a conduit for a new system of primitive accumulation. If, let’s call them the Whim appointments, can be done with such aplomb, it seems clear that the new administration is already some way down this slippery slope.
The only advice we may have for local residents, as we did with the previous administration after the appointments of Mutt and Jeff, is: lock up yu house, hide yu daughter, fence yu yad, tie up yu cow, send yu wife to she family, liaison is on the loose!!
Rishee Thakur

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