The offer was made by President Bharrat Jagdeo at a news conference at the Office of the President, Georgetown.

Reiterating his Government's commitment to the dialogue he started more than a year ago with leader of the PNC/R, Mr. Desmond Hoyte, President Jagdeo said the PNC/R is making "all kinds of vague excuses" about the dialogue not making progress but pointed out that the facts are "staring the nation in the face".

"I want to offer the PNC Reform half of a page in the newspapers. The Government will pay for half of a page in the newspapers to put forward their positions (and) to respond to these issues on each of the six committees established through the dialogue process," President Jagdeo told reporters.

"The reason why I am offering a half-page ad in the newspapers is so that ordinary people across this country can make up their own minds as to whether this case (by the PNC/R) that progress has not been made in the dialogue, has any merit," he declared.

The President also challenged the PNC/R to respond to an advertisement from the Government on the dialogue, which has been carried in newspapers.

That advertisement also reiterated the Government's unstinted commitment to the dialogue process with the PNC/R, pointing out that the overwhelming majority of the Guyanese people support this process with many of them seeing it as an opportunity that will lead to a better life in the country.

It noted that progress has been made in the currently stalled dialogue process, a process which was commended by civil society and which several groups and major western countries have urged be restarted.

"The dialogue process has resolved a lot of issues. There has been significant forward movement on many of the agenda items and supplementary matters," the advertisement stated.

It reiterated the Government's commitment to the dialogue process and noted that as recent as July 4, President Bharrat Jagdeo, at the U.S. National Day event, said: "I remain ready and open to dialogue in the national interest...I believe that we cannot continue making excuses and setting obstacles in the path of dialogue".

"In our case dialogue is not only the preferred way - it is the only feasible and acceptable way for us to solve our problems and I will remain untiring in my pursuit of solutions to our national problems," the Guyanese Head of State said then.

"But I will offer them half a page in the newspaper to respond to the ad in the newspapers and let people see who is making excuses and whether there are other reasons for not wanting this dialogue," President Jagdeo told reporters yesterday.

"It couldn't be that there was no progress made in the dialogue. That's just a camouflage, a smokescreen for other issues," he charged.

The President, however, pointed out that the PNC/R cannot speak about the progress made regarding the Parliamentary Management Committees because he and Mr. Hoyte did not get to discuss this issue.

"You can't speak about the Parliamentary Management Committees because we didn't even reach - Mr. Hoyte and myself - to discuss those. Three times I've tried to have the discussions at our level and each of the three occasions, he (Hoyte) said 'let Reep and Carberry deal with the issue'," the President explained.

Mr. Reepu Daman Persaud and Mr. Lance Carberry have been mandated by the governing People's Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) and the PNC/R, respectively, to act as intermediaries (facilitators) in the dialogue process.

President Jagdeo said Persaud and Carberry "could not deal with the issue at some point in time because they couldn't make decisions".

He pointed out that only he and Hoyte can make the decisions.

"So (the PNC) can't come and say there was no progress there because we never dealt with the issue at our level," Mr. Jagdeo pointed out, stressing that he tried three times to have discussions on the matter.

Asked to react to calls to expand the dialogue to include probably some elements of civil society, President Jagdeo said that in principle, he does not have any difficulty with people engaging in broad-based dialogue.

He pointed out that this was in fact encouraged through the National Development Strategy when there were nation-wide consultations.

"No government in the world has ever done what we did. That is, to hand over an NDS which was crafted with Government officials and with civil society to be revised by the civil society totally and put before the National Assembly untouched for debate," he said.

"No government in the world has ever done that and that shows our commitment to civil society. So I do not see why they shouldn't be involved in dialogue on issues that are affecting the nation," he added.

The President also touched briefly on the progress made in the six joint committees established during his dialogue with Hoyte and which was highlighted in the advertisement.

In a brief background to the process, the advertisement recalled that on April 25 last year, President Jagdeo and Hoyte met and issued a joint statement in which they announced that joint committees will be established within two weeks for Local Government Reform; Border and National Security issues; Distribution of Land and House Lots; the Resuscitation of the Bauxite Industry; Depressed Communities Needs Committee; and Radio Monopoly and Non-Partisan Boards of Directors.

The subsequent May 14, 2001 dialogue meeting resulted in the agreement on the terms of reference of the various committees and a meeting of the various joint committees the following day.

The various joint committees were to be supported by the subject ministry and a timetable for the completion of the joint committees work was agreed upon.