The human resource void in local democracy

Apr 23, 2018 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Three layers of local government represent a burden on the country’s slender human resource base. The political parties are well aware that finding sufficient, competent persons to populate the government, the Regional Democratic Councils and the Neighbourhood Democratic Councils represent a challenge.
The political parties end up scraping the bottom of their barrels in order to find such quality persons to fill the many layers of our local government. After creaming off the best for the Parliament and the Government, there is not much left in the tank for populating the Neighbourhood Democratic Councils.
The main political parties lack the depth of talent that is required to ensure that the Local Government gets the best that it deserves. The political parties end up having to place persons, who have had no experience at all in administration, to become councillors in the both the Regional Democratic Councils and the Neighbourhood Democratic Councils.
They do end up finding some good persons. But in the end they have to find others who are really not the sort of material that one would expect to find within these representative organs.
It is a two-fold human resource challenge. Firstly, there is a shortage of qualified persons within the country. This has to do with the migration of skills, which has denuded this country of talent from since before Independence.
The best move away, leaving the country with a critical shortage of skills and talents. It is for this reason that persons have to be pulled out of retirement to help fill positions within representative local government organs.
The second part of the problem concerns the political parties. They struggle to find sufficient numbers of capable persons to occupy all three layers of government.
The ugly politics of Guyana is a major deterrent to persons wanting to become involved in politics. Persons who may be willing to serve their communities do not wish to become associated with the politics of political parties.
A culture of suppressing independent thinking by the political parties also discourages persons from becoming involved. The domination of the main political parties by a cabal of veteran politicians compounds the lack of attraction for persons to become involved in local democracy.
Political polarizations makes the problem worse. At the last Local Government Elections held in 2016, the population rejected independent groups, which contested for positions within municipalities and Neighbourhood Democratic Councils.
The zero sum game supported by the population of Guyana means that they see a victory for the PPPC as a defeat of the APNU and vice versa. This leads to the marginalization of small political parties and independent groups, as was evident in the last Local Government Elections.
A long-term solution requires two approaches. The first is constitutional reform, which should be directed at reducing the number of layers of Local Government, and the second involves creating political space for non-parties to contest local government polls.
Constitutional change is needed to revamp our Local Government system to allow for less layers. Guyana’s small society means that finding sufficient persons to fill these positions will always be problematic.
It also needs to be asked whether there is a need to have both a regional system of administration and so many Neighbourhoods Democratic Councils. Other countries have done away with the archaic idea of village councils and have implemented instead a system of boroughs.
Secondly, there is a need to insist on making the Local Government system more democratic by ensuring that there is space for small parties and individuals. Some concession has to be made to allow for representation outside of the main political parties.
Unless these changes are engineered, Guyana’s Local Government system will continue to be the victim of political seizure by the main political parties, to the detriment of local democracy and local communities.

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