Dictatorship and false promises in local democracy

Aug 03, 2018 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
The recently held inaugural National Conference of Local Democratic Organs (NCLDO) is definitely a living example of extravagant and a complete waste of taxpayers’ money. The huge publicity by the APNU/AFC Coalition Government boasting about the hosting of this NCLDO conference is to divert attention from the critical issues that are affecting the various Local Authorities Areas and to use the opportunity to campaign hypocritically that the APNU/AFC are strong advocates of Local Democracy which is way beyond the truth .
During the visit by President David Granger to Fyrish on the 16th March, 2018, he told local officials that his government is committed to working with local democratic organs (RDC and NDC) to find workable solutions.
He also announced that he will convene a region-wide conference engaging regional and local officials with the view of addressing the problems that are being faced at the local level so that citizens at community level can enjoy a higher quality of service from their respective local democratic organs.
These were the commitments made by President Granger publicly and were definitely not fulfilled by the hosting of the NCLDO. Instead he informed officials that they have to be self-sufficient, imposing autonomy, which means that in order to sustain the Local Authority Areas, the Local Leaders must increase burdens such as increase taxes, fees etc., on the struggling Guyanese people in various Local Authority Areas.
Since the first Local Government Conference in 2015, numerous issues where raised by Local Leaders. To date, nothing has been done to address these issues.
The Local Government System has been brought to irrelevance since 2015 .This is the first time in the history of Guyana that an elected Regional Democratic Council (Region Five) cannot function effectively.
The government is imposing new NDCs and Municipalities down the throats of people in the new Local Authority Areas without any consultation, a new form of dictatorship.
Imagine at a meeting by GECOM in a new NDC, the Caracas-Wyburg area, the residents were dissatisfied with GECOM just coming to inform residents about the Local Government elections by imposing demarcation of various constituencies without any consultation. The government never even consulted with residents that the area would be a new Local Authority Area.
On Local Authorities Amendment Bill #9/2018 our Regional Member of Parliament Cde Zulfikar Mustapha mentioned in his presentation that there was no consultation in the formation of these specific Local Authority Areas and the ‘big stick’ method used to dictate the formation.
The APNU/AFC Coalition Government is trying to convince the International Communities and the world that they are advocates of Local Democracy, which is a fallacy.
Regards
Zamal Hussain
Councillor
Regional Democratic Council
Region Six

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