The joint statement on the outcome of Wednesday's joint consultations convened by the Social Partners grouping and attended by the parliamentary political parties, save the Guyana Action Party, is to be made available today.
The statement was to have been made available yesterday after the parties to the discussions on Wednesday agreed to it. The meeting followed the consultations the Social Partners group held with the political parties over the past seven weeks at which it put forward its ideas on shared governance as envisaged by Article 13 of the constitution.
On the agenda for discussion at Wednesday's meeting were the implementation of the constitutional reforms and the present crime situation.
However, the chairman of the session on Wednesday and spokesperson for the Social Partners Dr Peter de Groot issued a release yesterday saying, "Due to unforeseen circumstances we have been unable to finalize the press release on the Joint Consultation that occurred yesterday. We continue to attempt to finalise it, but since it is now after 4:00 pm. We may be unable to do this before tomorrow morning."
Just before 7:00 pm de Groot confirmed that he had been unable to finalise the statement and that he expected to issue it today.
Present at Wednesday's meeting which ran for almost two hours were President Bharrat Jagdeo, Attorney General Doodnauth Singh SC, Ministers Gail Teixeira, Bibi Shaddick, Shaik Baksh, and Drs Henry Jeffrey, Leslie Ramsammy, Jennifer Westford as well as Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon representing the government. Donald Ramotar, general secretary; Robert Persaud, Odinga Lumumba, Robeson Benn and Ronald Ally represented the PPP/C.
Trade Minister, Manzoor Nadir, Michael Abrams, Aubrey Collins and Joe Shaw represented The United Force. Sheila Holder and Prof Clive Thomas represented the Working People's Alliance. Ravi Dev led a three-man delegation from ROAR.
Opposition leader Des-mond Hoyte, Vincent Alexan-der, Oscar Clarke, Deryck Bernard, Faith Harding, Lance Carberry, James McAllister, Lurlene Nestor, Clarissa Riehl, Raphael Trotman, Stanley Ming and Dr George Norton represented the PNC/R.
The social partners delegation comprising representatives of the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC), the Private Sector Commission (PSC), and the Guyana Bar Association (GBA) was de Groot, Ramesh Dookoo from the PSC, Lillian Crawford-Abbensetts of the GBA and Carvil Duncan and Lincoln Lewis from the GTUC.