Stabroek News
May 23, 2001

Action has been taken in a number of areas on the menu of measures put in place by the Jagdeo/Hoyte dialogue process which began on April 24.

The most immediate of these measures was to address the question of the political neutrality of the public service, which the opposition parties and the Guyana Public Service Union - which represents the majority of public servants - claim had been compromised since the appointment of Dr Roger Luncheon in 1992 as head of the Presidential Secretariat. Until now, the head of the Presidential Secretariat has been the acknowledged head of the public service and the holders before Dr Luncheon took no overt part in the campaigns of the ruling party.

A two-man team comprising former Public Service Commission chairman, Harold Sahadeo and former permanent secretary, Public Service Ministry, Joyce Sinclair, has been appointed to review the functions of both posts to allow for the formal appointment of a head of the public service.

The urgency of their assignment has been impressed upon Sahadeo and Sinclair by President Bharrat Jagdeo and PNC REFORM leader Desmond Hoyte and they have already set about their task and hope to submit an interim report soon.

The National Assembly was convened on May 4, and the next sitting is scheduled for tomorrow, at which the debate on the president's Speech would begin and it is expected that some of the amendments to the constitution would be tabled for their first reading. Stabroek News understands that the amendments have been in legislative form before the dissolution of the last parliament for the March 19, elections. These amendments have to be tabled within one month of the convening of Parliament.

Another agreement reached is that related to the recognition of the government without prejudice to a petition challenging the election.

At the opening of the parliament, unlike the last parliament, the PNC/R members were present during the prayers by the National Assembly in which parliamentarians pray for the health of the President.

A petition challenging the elections was filed by Veronica Delph, in which President Jagdeo is named among the respondents.

Another measure too is a mechanism involving all the parliamentary parties for the joint management of the affairs of parliament. The first step towards creating this was taken last week Tuesday at a meeting between Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Reepu Daman Persaud and Lance Carberry (PNC/R), Sheila Holder (GAP/WPA), Manzoor Nadir (TUF) and Ravi Dev (ROAR). They are due to meet again on Friday at which time they will explore the ideas tabled as to the form the mechanism should take and how it should function.

Another measure was the establishment of committees/task forces to deal with issues such as local government reform, resuscitation of the bauxite industry, national policy on land and house lot distribution, depressed communities needs, border and national security issues including the recapitalisation of the Guyana Defence Force and radio monopoly and non-partisan boards for the state media.

The composition of the committees has been announced and they have started to work.

President Jagdeo and Hoyte had agreed that they would identify some depressed areas for priority treatment ahead of the relevant committee's report. Four communities were identified and announced on Tuesday and on Saturday the committee met residents of Buxton, East Coast Demerara at the Buxton Community Centre and met the residents of Non Pariel/Enterprise at the Enterprise Primary School on Sunday. The other two communities are De Kenderen and Meten-Meer-Zorg, West Coast Demerara.

Another measure yet to be put in place is that for addressing cooperation in the completion of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper to allow Guyana to access resources under the enhanced Highly Indebted Poor Countries initiative.

It has not yet been announced as to whether agreement has been reached on the inquiry called for by Hoyte into police brutality and his party's call for an inquiry into the April 9 incidents. President Jagdeo supported the call for an inquiry but wanted it to cover the events on March 19 onwards.

The initiative for the talks was taken by President Jagdeo and Hoyte responded by tabling 17 issues that he said would indicate the PPP/Civic's administration seriousness about dialogue depending on the speed with which they were addressed. In the face of the post-March 19, elections incident, President Jagdeo called for an end to the violence in which some innocent persons were injured. He also stressed that the dialogue should not be conducted in an atmosphere of fear, intimidation and pressure.