PNCR General Secretary resigns

Jun 25, 2024 News

– cites lack of transparency and accountability in management of party

Kaieteur News – As if the allegations of sexual harassment and the deepening rift in the party are not enough, Leader of the Peoples National Congress Reform (PNCR), Aubrey Norton was on Monday hit with another setback- this time the resignation of his General Secretary. (GS) Dawn Hastings-Williams.

Dawn Hastings-Williams

Hastings-Williams is the second GS appointed by Norton to have resigned- the first being Geeta Chandan-Edmond. Hastings-Williams a Member of Parliament and former government minister cited a range of issues for her resignation- chief among them being the party’s lack of preparedness for the upcoming congress and a lack of accountability and transparency in the management of the organization. Her resignation takes effect from June 24th 2024.

In her resignation letter addressed to Norton, Hastings-Williams noted that within the period of over one year she was unable to present any financial statement to the Central Executive Committee (CEC). “Reason simply being that I have no access to the weekly or monthly income and expenditure statement,” she noted. She added that she had requested of the accountant last December to prepare and produce a financial statement for the year 2023 so as to present it to the CEC. “When I called for the statement to be handed in to me the accountant said that she had completed the statement as was instructed by me but was told not to hand it over to me but to put in on hold,” Hastings Williams explained.

Another reason for her resignation, the former party executive said that her position on the readiness of the 22nd Biennial Delegates Congress was not taken into proper consideration. “With the entire administrative task that has to be undertaken by the secretariat, I believe that the one-month period for preparation for such a congress can lead to confusion rather than having a fair and transparent process and outcome. I am quite sure that you and the members of the CEC will agree with me that when the Congress is over it must conclude in a positive light,” she said.

Hastings-Williams also pointed to exemption of observers of the process. She noted that Rule15 (3) addresses Observers at Congress and permits her as the General Secretary to accredit persons to attend as observers whether they are members or not. Hence, she begged the question, “Why are we abandoning the privilege party members look forward to?” As the General Secretary, Hastings-Williams said she believes she should be integrally involved in every aspect of the preparation for the Congress. “However, that has not been happening in many instances. For example, invitations were sent out to persons without my knowledge and I don’t know under whose authorised signature other than the General Secretary of the Party. I found out when I began to send out a few written invitations and only to be told that they are already in receipt of an invitation. This, I see as a gross disrespect to my office.”

Giving details of other instances where she felt disrespected, Hastings-Williams said that while she loves her party, she will not continue to sit as a rubber stamp in the Office of the General Secretary. “If you can recall Cde. Leader, at our very first meeting, I told you that I will accept the appointment under the condition that you allow me and gave me the scope to function as the General Secretary of the party without being micromanaged.” She stated in the resignation letter.

Membership

On the issue of membership, Hastings-Williams said ever since her assumption of Office as the General Secretary she had been attempting to correct the situation “after I was informed that the external drive with all the information on the General membership was removed and perhaps destroyed and that the software on the computer was crashed. I can confirm the computer was eventually fixed sometime in late April or early May. And then you had the incident where the CPU was removed from the department without the General Secretary’s permission. This occurrence caused a delay for almost two weeks. Consequently, I cannot personally vouch for the accuracy of the records in this section. Additionally, I have received complaints from several groups and party members some in writing, that the records of the secretariat do not correspond with their previous submissions and that their membership register does not reflect their true membership,” Hastings-Williams documented in her resignation letter.

She said too that many members also claim that they have been unable or will be unable to meet the short deadlines set for the submissi0n of the delegates and other information because of the short notice period for Congress. “Consequently, I cannot substantiate or dismiss the accuracy of these claims especially when it was only Friday 21st June, the updated but not quite completed General Membership Register was handed over to the Administrator. Hence the need for corrections and changes will have to be done between the current time and the date of the Congress.” “I must mention an instance where a comrade from one of the groups in the USA came to my office to enquire about the reason why membership cards were not being printed and we both entered the Membership Department to examine the computer and the other equipment so as to determine what was the pending issue and to see whether he can assist in any way to get the membership matter addressed. Not even five minutes past when the Leader called him to ask why was he questioning a junior staff about membership. The expression on the Comrades face and the tone of his voice told me that something was not right. I never felt so humiliated after that incident. I felt as if I was being watched and monitored. In fact, this was actually the second time I felt humiliated after being locked out at the gate where canters and cars were used to block my vehicle from entering to pick me up to take me home from work.”