— asks to be relieved of responsibility
HEAD of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon, has accused British Government representatives of being insincere and inconsistent in negotiations on security aid for Guyana and has asked President Bharrat Jagdeo to be relieved of responsibility for the process.

“Fundamentally, my experiences with the British representatives have revealed how insincere and inconsistent they have been with regards to our concerns about national ownership of the process by Guyana”, he said in a letter to the President released to the media yesterday.

The request by Luncheon, also Cabinet Secretary and Secretary to the Defence Board, follows reported frustrations by British High Commissioner Fraser Wheeler about delays in implementing the British-funded security sector reform plan.

The plan under consideration since 2007 is for about G$1 billion in support from the British Government.

Wheeler was earlier this week reported by some local media as saying he was frustrated by the delay in implementing the plan and that “some people in government…are quibbling about administrative details”.

One newspaper on Tuesday reported him as saying, “We have to use this money; it has been hanging around for a long time, and as I say, in the current economic climate, we need to use it or we will lose it.”

Luncheon in his letter to the President said that his engagements with British representatives since 2007 on the project have been “challenging”.

“The records would show that with each important step along the way I have had to repeatedly address issues of national ownership and even resort to your inputs at times.

“Thus in late 2008, your inputs allowed me to conclude a most comprehensive framework for security sector reform, the principal output of which would be the formulation and implementation of a National Security Policy and Strategy”, he said.

Luncheon said Guyana was advised that that agreement needed to be endorsed by the Government of the UK since the Administration had entrenched constitutionally, parliamentary oversight of the Security Sector as well as establishing a Security Sector Secretariat within the Office of the President.

He said the representatives of the United Kingdom last month advised him that their government had given its approval for the design “we had agreed to for Security Sector Reform in Guyana and offered two documents that provided details of implementation.”

“The two documents provided have disturbed me immensely and caused me considerable conflict. As such I have grave doubts I can continue to exchange meaningfully with the representatives of the Government of the United Kingdom”, Luncheon stated.

He added: “The content of their April submission is offensive, suggesting that Guyana is totally incapable of managing its own Security Sector Reform and needed to be spoon fed in the implementing of all aspects of the Security Sector Reform contemplated in the GOG/UK engagement.

“Mr. President, my nationalist sentiments are not excessive and I cannot accept that the resident representatives of the Government of the United Kingdom seriously intend to involve me any longer on the basis of their April 2009 submission.

“Mr. President, I am left to conclude that the representatives had to have an ulterior motive in presenting these two documents whose content they were quite aware I would find offensive and unacceptable.

“Mr. President, it is in that context, that I urge you to absolve me of any further responsibility for engaging these United Kingdom Representatives on concluding an agreement on the details of the Security Sector Reform Project in Guyana.”

In a letter to Wheeler, also released to the media yesterday, Luncheon said he was dismayed by the two documents submitted from the British Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

“I am distraught that those two documents could have been produced and submitted to me by anyone who participated in our bilateral engagements.

“Let me identify my profound disappointment with the specific proposals on Management of the Project; the process and its time course.

“So disappointed am I that I must inform you of’ my intention to withdraw from any further participation in this process, as well as my recommendation to my principals that the two documents be rejected in their entirety”, he said.