Govt, PNC/R still at odds on dialogue
Stabroek News
July 17, 2002
The government and the PNC/R are still at odds over whether the dialogue decisions have been fulfilled raising the question as to whether third party intervention may be needed to sort out the contesting claims.
The PNC/R is insisting that the decisions flowing from the dialogue between President Bharrat Jagdeo and PNC/R Leader Desmond Hoyte have not been implemented, calling the full-page advertisement which appeared in Monday's Stabroek News disingenuous.
PNC/R general secretary, Oscar Clarke took issue with the claim in the advertisement that the government had discharged its undertaking to appoint PNC/R representatives to the boards of state and other governmental institutions.
According to the advertisement: "There are PNC/R nominees on over 50 state boards, commissions and committees. In the six instances where appointments have not been made, the HPS Dr [Roger] Luncheon has provided the PNC/R general secretary, Oscar Clarke, with explanations."
Clarke said that the PNC/R submitted names for appointment to 63 boards, but that the response from Luncheon only indicated appointments to 50 boards, commissions, and other bodies. Clarke said that he was yet to hear about the other 13. Also, he said, of the 50, only about 41 of the persons whose names were submitted have been appointed. Clarke said that he had been given an explanation about one of the other nine and that was provided only after he inquired.
According to the government advertisement, the Local Government Committee was tasked with recommendations for reforming the local government system. The ad averred that it has done quite a bit of work as both sides worked assiduously to meet the deadline. It said that one outstanding decision was the type of electoral process. It noted that this was a complex issue and a legal draftsman has already been retained for the task. As soon as the committee's mandate is extended work will resume.
However, PNC/R officials contend that the work of the committee was held up first by the refusal of the PPP/C to accept a decision by the committee to appoint Notre Dame University Professor, Dr Andrew Reynolds as the electoral expert to advise it on the electoral system even though its representatives had agreed on it. It is a charge that the PPP/C has never denied.
With regard to the Border and National Security Committee, the two leaders agreed that it should be reviewed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs so as to exclude any sensitive issues. When this was done it was to be approved by the two leaders before being laid in the National Assembly. Stabroek News understands that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has concluded the review and the report should have been returned to the two leaders for their approval before being laid in the National Assembly. The two leaders are still to meet for this.
The ad said that the committee on the bauxite industry resuscitation had focused on the privatisation of Linmine as agreed and that a negotiating team was to be set up to engage Omai/Cambior on this issue. Hoyte had nominated a representative on the negotiating team and the deliberations had resulted in an MOU with Omai/Cambior.
The PNC/R has always contended that the work of the Bauxite committee was subverted by Prime Minister Sam Hinds who has ministerial responsibility for mining. The PNC/R says that the two leaders had agreed that with respect to Linmine, the committee would oversee the negotiations with the Canadian company Cambior, the parent company of Omai Gold Mines Ltd. It was agreed that a technical committee would conduct the negotiations and a nominee, P.Q. DeFreitas, a US-based financial consultant was named to the committee. Those negotiations were supervised by President Jagdeo to the exclusion of the committee, the PNC/R claims.
With regard to the Depressed Communities Committee the PNC/R's complaint is that it took more than six months before government informed it that it needed to regularise De Kinderen before the area could be electrified. This information was also only made available after complaints by the PNC/R. It contended that these were priority tasks and the government did not move with the desired urgency. The government ad pointed out that substantial work was done with the $60M set aside for Non Pariel/Enterprise, Buxton, De Kinderen and Meten-Meer-Zorg.
The government ad also pointed out that a policy on the distribution of land and house lots had been completed - albeit past the deadline - and legislation for the broadcast authority was being drafted.
In relation to the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC), the PNC/R dismissed the government's explanation that "the issue has been complicated by the inaction of the [former] Clerk of the National Assembly," who admitted "his inaction and requested to be relieved of his post."
The PNC/R pointed out that the ERC should have been in place before the March 2001 elections. It noted too that a motion authorising the Clerk to invite the various organisations to be represented to meet and select their nominees was approved almost a year before the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, according to the advertisement, issued his instructions to the then Clerk of the National Assembly in November 2001.
Other outstanding issues that will not be settled until the two sides re-engage are the composition of the Parliamentary Management Committee, and the four sectoral committees created by recent amendments to the Constitution. Also caught in the logjam is the constitution of the Appointive Committee without which the Service Commissions and other constitutional bodies cannot be constituted.