All nominations in for Ethnic Relations Commission
Stabroek News
December 22, 2002
All the interest groups to be represented on the Ethnic Relations Commission have submitted to the Clerk of the National Assembly the names of their nominees.
The last names to be submitted were those of the nominees to represent youth. The other groups, which had submitted their nominees some months ago are the Hindu, Muslim and Christian groups, the labour movement, the private sector and the groups representing women.
Chairman of the National Youth Commission, Dr Frank Anthony told Stabroek News that the names of the nominee and an alternate had been submitted to the Parliament Office following a meeting of nine of the 26 groups named in the second schedule of the Ethnic Relations Act.
He said the nominee was the unanimous choice of the meeting but the alternate was selected by a majority vote.
Dr Anthony said he had since written the groups listed in the schedule notifying them of the nominees selected and inviting their comments but none had been forthcoming from those which did not attend the November 22 meeting.
Before that date, there had been two failed attempts to convene a meeting. At the first attempt only three groups turned up. Six groups turned up for the second meeting.
The meeting was convened for the groups to select by a consensus mechanism a nominee to the Commission and an alternate.
The nine groups represented on November 23, were the Volunteer Youth Corps, the Gandhi Youth Organisation, the Progressive Youth Organisation, the Guyana Youth and Students Movement, Guyana Hindu Dharmic Youth Arm, the Guyana United Youth Society, the Roman Catholic Youth Office, the Methodist Youth Club and the National Youth Commission.
The groups which did not attend the meeting were the Youth Ambassadors of the First Assembly of God, the TUC Youth Movement, the Church of Christ Youth Group, the Boy Scouts Association, the Girl Scouts Association, the Young Men's Christian Association, the Young Women's Christian Association, the Moravian Youth Club, the Full Gospel Youth Fellowship, the Guyana Junior Chamber, the University of Guyana Students' Society, the Seventh Day Adventists' Pathfinders, the Muslim Youth Organisation, the Working People's Alliance's Youth Organisation, the Georgetown Youth Leaders Council, the Guyana Congregational Young People's Union and the Guyana Responsible Parenthood Under 20s Club.
The Commission should have been operationalised before the March 2001 elections but the Parliament Office did not send out the letters inviting nominations until April 2001.
The current political impasse has compounded the delay in establishing the Ethnic Relations Tribunal which allows persons to appeal decisions of the Commission.
