Latest update January 20th, 2025 4:00 AM
Poor turn out on Monday should inspire the LGE commissioners back to the drawing board
Dear Editor,
I was pleasantly surprised to see a response by Minister of Communities, Ronald Bulkan, in regards to my missive, “After spending $1.5 billion, very little will change after LGE” [KN Nov 4, 2018].
In his response,” Local democracy was absent” Nov 7, 2018 the Minister seemingly assuming the role of PRO for the Ministry , wrote. “The Ministry wishes to refute the baseless and myopic assertions made by Rudolph Singh in his letter.”
Firstly I would like to congratulate Minister Bulkan for doing the functions of PRO for his ministry in a government that is being accused of overspending. Nevertheless! I cannot differentiate if the response is a collective effort from the Ministry or the Minister’s personal rumblings.
The Minister used one assertion from my missive and wrote. “In his myopic tirade, Singh lamented that $1.5 billion will be ‘wasted’ on local democracy.” The Minister then went on a tirade of his own, totally irrelevant and out of context with my missive.
In his tirade the minister mired into suggestive mode, writing, “Is Mr. Singh suggesting that we revert to the old system by which the Minister of Local Government sits in his Fort Street Kingston office and handpick local leaders” blah blah. Nothing in relevance to my missive. I wonder if the Minister read my letter or was told about it!
Surely! The minister, having tweaked the boundaries of the LAAs to give advantage to his party, without consensus with the opposition, incriminates himself, for wanting to ”revert to the old system by which the Minister of Local Government sits in his Fort Street, Kingston office and handpick local leaders”- the minister’s words.
It’s funny how some politicians, in local parlance, would try to take their own faeces and paste it on other people’s bottom.
My missive carried a red flag in its entirety, which could be summed up in one sentence- “The names of the political parties should not be on the LGE ballot, period.” I give several reasons for my premise, reasons that the public could reckon with! I would have expected something of substance and with relevance to what I wrote to justify the minister’s use of the term “the baseless and myopic assertions used by Rudolph Singh.” None appeared in the Minister’s letter.
The Minister seems bent on avoiding the big picture on LGE. The system because of the political parties involvement, is failing to inspire public confidence in LGE. People are not silly! The mere fact that both parties are not even announcing the names of their candidates when campaigning in a locality is indicative that the only interest they have in LGE is to extract a head count of their support for the 2020 general elections.
The joint services have already showed their disdain. The poor turn out on Monday should inspire Mr Bulkan to send the LGE commissioners back to the drawing board to strike the politicians out of the people’s business.
Rudolph Singh
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