LOCAL government is crucial to the effective management of the affairs of any country and therefore the personnel who are responsible for administering the system have to be properly trained and suitable for the job if efficient services are to be delivered at the local level.
Unfortunately, in Guyana we cannot boast of a large number of well trained personnel within the local democratic organs. Consequently, the desired level of services is not being delivered to the people in the various communities across the country.
However, this deficiency in the local government system did not develop overnight, but rather has its historical roots in the destruction of democracy through a long period of rigged elections and the virtual dismantling of representative local bodies since the 1970s. Ever since then our local government system began to crumble, but it was given a shot in the arm following the return of free and fair elections and the restoration of democracy in 1992. And after 14 years, the first democratic local government elections were held in 1994. But unfortunately because agreement between the ruling party and the main opposition party could not have been reached on local government reforms, we have not had another local government election since 1994. In this period, our local government system has almost collapsed.
Recently, the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, on Monday, conducted the first in a series of training workshops for overseers and assistant overseers of Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDCs) under the theme, ‘Strengthening Local Government through Human Resource Development.’
This certainly is a step in the right direction because we cannot afford to have people manning the local government bodies ill-equipped for the job.In the final analysis, it is the people who will suffer and become disappointed and frustrated and lose confidence in the system. And a disappointed and frustrated people who lack confidence in the system will become less productive, which in turn will impact negatively on the national economy. So we could end up in a whirlpool we may find extremely difficult to get out of.
But it is not training alone that is the issue. It is important that the most suitable people are placed in the local government bodies. People who simply want a job just for a job’s sake, or are party loyalists or etc cannot suffice. On the contrary, local government personnel have to be persons who are sincerely and genuinely committed to improve the lives of people and their communities and also who command the respect of the people from within their respective communities and are prepared to work hard and beyond the call of duty and without prejudice and bias.
If we do not employ personnel with such qualities, no matter how good are the reforms we make they would remain just reforms, because the delivery of efficient and effective services hinges mainly on good management and administration of the affairs of any entity.
At the recent training session, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, Collin Croal, made some extremely pertinent observations and pronouncements, one of them being the need for proper financial accountability and the failure of some NDCs to update their record keeping and to requests for lengthy additional time to have those documentations in order. Indeed, no entity can function effectively, efficiently and in the interest of the people without proper record-keeping and financial accountability.
According to the World Bank, local capacity is one of the most important factors creating a well-functioning decentralised civil service. In countries where local institutions already exist, the challenge will be to reinforce them institutionally and legally as well as to strengthen their personnel management capacities. In places where local government institutions are embryonic or exist only at an informal level, the institutional and legal frameworks will have to be created before any type of reform of the administration is undertaken.