The local government system in Guyana requires electoral system reform and consensus building in order to function effectively and efficiently to satisfy the needs of the people.

This was posited by Trinidad-born Professor Bishnu Ragoonauth who left Guyana last week after delivering two lectures on "Decentralisation, autonomy, and local governance" organised by the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and the University of Guyana.

The Professor, who worked in Guyana from 1994 to 1998 on the local government reform project, declared that there was need for reform in several areas of local government in Guyana.

He added that the reform encompassed not only the local government system, but the central government, which needed to become more aware of what local government was all about.

Professor Ragoonauth stated that the citizenry should be empowered to be able to really participate in the local government process.

Noting there was much talk these days about governance, he said people tended to mix it up with government, and even politicians used the two terms interchangeably as though they meant the same thing. Government was part of governance, he said, and it dealt with the administering of functions and services within the context of good public management.

Other parts of government dealt with development and democracy in the wider spectrum.

Professor Ragoonauth said local government could facilitate democracy if everything it was involved in was done within the context of development.

In terms of democracy, he said, this was now being questioned given the fact that the last local government elections had been held in 1994.

He pointed out that democracy was not limited only to elections since there was also the question of the inclusion of civil society in the decision-making process, and in the implementation of decisions.

The Professor was of the view that the local government system in Guyana had been falling short by its lack of transparency and accountability.

There was also the question of proper planning to strategically utilise all of the resources available, he said.

In the area of development, Professor Ragoonauth stated that some of the activities which local government should be involved in were not being done, such as the cleaning of drains on a timely basis.

He said the authorities might rationalise their shortcomings by pointing to a lack of resources, or by saying that central government was too overpowering or that party politics was having a negative effect. But rationalising the situation, he said, should be no excuse for not finding solutions to create a better system.

Professor Ragoonauth said that in the area of public management local government had to become more transparent, accountable and had to deliver the services it was mandated to deliver, while in addition it had to be ensured that the citizenry understood local government.

Local government also had to be innovative and take the initiative to become more financially self sufficient.

Central government for its part needed to be convinced that they had to decentralise power and authority to local government, but that the latter had to prove that it was capable.

The professor said that to increase democracy and promote development, local government had to join with more people and groups, and that a mechanism had to be developed to ensure there was the widest inclusion in the process.

Another challenge of local government, he continued, was to find a way to get more women involved in the process. Guyana had a low percentage of women in local government in comparison with the rest of the Caribbean, and this should not be, because the culture was similar.

Ragoonauth considered that serious attempts should be made to get more women involved, and pointed out that at the parliamentary level there was a quota for women on the party lists of candidates submitted prior to an election.

A review should be done on the local government elections system to move it away from proportional representation, the professor said.

He noted that Guyana was the only country in the Caribbean using this system.

In the Caribbean, countries favoured the first-past-the-post system where it was easy to identify the councillor of a district.

Professor Ragoonauth said it would be in the interest of local government in Guyana to establish a formula for finance acquired from central government.

Giving one example in Jamaica, he said that central government there gave the local government authorities two-thirds of the revenue collected for car licences. In this way income could be budgeted because it was fixed income.

He said subventions given by government on the other hand, were not fixed so programmes could not be budgeted ahead of time, and he thought there should be clarity about the revenue to be collected.

He stated that central government should assist local government to ensure that the valuation of properties was done properly so that local government could collect more funds directly from the people and become less dependent on subventions.

Professor Ragoonauth's lecture series was part of the education process of the people on local government where they could get a better understanding of what the system is all about.

The local government task force is to meet soon with the public for consultations on reform.

The professor has been a lecturer at the University of West Indies for 10 years.

He has also worked as a consultant with Systems Caribbean Ltd and the Caribbean Centre for Administration and Development.