Both the PPP/C and the PNCR have expressed the view that the Social Partners should bring their initiative on a joint crime communique to completion.
Dr Peter deGroot, who heads the Social Partners grouping had told Stabroek News on Friday that he had forwarded the PNCR’s latest proposals on the communique to the PPP/C and the government, and had asked that the two parties appoint a team of representatives to meet and work out their differences without the group’s intervention.
In an e-mailed response to Dr deGroot the same evening made available to Stabroek News, Information Liaison to the President Robert Persaud wrote: “With reference to your e-mail, today, regarding the PNCR’s suggested amendments to the crime communique, please be assured of our confidence in the Social Partners’ ability to bring this initiative to its finality.”
Speaking to Stabroek News yesterday, PNCR General Secretary Oscar Clarke said that he agreed with Persaud that the Social Partners should be responsible for bringing the initiative to its finality.
In his e-mail, Persaud, who is also a member of the PPP/C delegation to the Social Partners’ joint consultations, went on to say: “As you would have noticed, our reasonable submissions and amendments were done with the aim of achieving, at the earliest opportunity, a communique that would be acceptable to the Social Partners and the other concerned stakeholders.”
He concluded with the assurance that the PPP/C would continue to support the endeavour of the Social Partners, since it had been the stated position of the party for a long time that it was necessary “to forge national consensus on the campaign against crime and other related issues.”
Clarke told this newspaper that he was of the view that the Social Partners should bring the parties together for the discussions, and that he had indicated this to them. When asked what the amendments were that the PNC/R had proposed, the General Secretary declined to disclose them, in order, he said, not to jeopardize the discussions, which had been fruitful so far.
For more than a month now, the Social Partners have been consulting the various parties in an effort to secure a consensus on the substance and wording of the joint communique on crime.