The Social Partners and representatives of the government and parliamentary political parties made considerable progress on agreeing on a joint communiqué on crime after a marathon six-hour session yesterday at the Supreme Court Library.
But they were unable to complete their discussions on all the issues and are to reconvene on Thursday at the same venue to continue consideration of the document. Spokesperson for the Social Partners and Chairman of the meeting, Private Sector Commission Chairman, Dr Peter deGroot told Stabroek News last night that the meeting agreed on between two-thirds and three-quarters of the document including the preamble. At Thursday’s session, he said the meeting would be looking at a group of four measures on which they were unable to find an agreeable formulation, as well as the institutional arrangements to monitor the implementation of the agreed measures.
While unwilling to comment on the progress made, a number of participants were pleasantly surprised by the conciliatory atmosphere of the talks and the willingness of the parties to address each other’s concerns and to work towards agreement on the document.
Stabroek News understands that these measures relate to operational issues, which the PNCR in its comments said should be left to the operational discretion of the heads of the security agencies. These measures relate to the establishment of a safe corridor on the East Coast Highway and Embankment Road and the establishment of joint intelligence cells at Police Headquarters and in the various Police Divisions.
The Social Partners convened yesterday’s meeting after they had received the comments of the parties on the final draft of the well-circulated communiqué.
That draft, the Social Partners believe, was their best effort at reflecting the views of the parties with which they had been consulting for about a month.
Based on the comments made, the Social Partners in a letter to the parties said that they felt that the issues would best be addressed by a face-to-face meeting with them.
Once the communiqué is agreed representatives of the parliamentary parties will sign it. President Bharrat Jagdeo and Leader of the Opposition, PNC/R leader, Desmond Hoyte will sign it in their constitutional capacities.
Crime is one of the issues identified by the Social Partners in their paper on Shared Governance, which was discussed at the joint consultations it convened with the parties on September 11.
At yesterday’s meeting, Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon led the Government’s delegation, which included Ministers, Dr Jennifer Westford and Gail Teixeira and Presidential Advisers, Odinga Lumumba and Feroze Mohamed; Parliamentary Affairs Minister Reepu Daman Persaud led the PPP delegation which included Information Liaison to the President, Robert Persaud, and central committee members, Desmond Morian and Anupwattie Vereen and cinema proprietor Anand Persaud; PNCR chairman, Robert Corbin led his party’s delegation which included central executive members Deryck Bernard and Stanley Ming; parliamentarian Sheila Holder and Desmond Trotman represented the Working People’s Alliance; ROAR’s leader, Ravi Dev headed his delegation and he was supported by Baldeo Chaitram; The United Force’s leader, Minister Manzoor Nadir, headed his party’s delegation which included Aubrey Collins and Harrichand Bola.
Accompanying Dr deGroot at the meeting as part of the Social Partners Group were Lillian Crawford-Abbensetts, vice-chairman of the Guyana Bar Association and Ramesh Dookhoo, chairman of the Guyana Manufacturers’ Association.