…process expected to be completed by May 30

THE Guyana Constitution provides that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Appointments, through an agreed on parliamentary consensual mechanism, identify constituencies from civil society to be asked to provide nominees to the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC). The 10 constituencies are the private sector, labour, youth, and women, Christians, Hindus, Muslims, and the ethnic cultural groups: Indians, Africans and Amerindians.
The Committee of Appointments on Wednesday held a session at the Guyana International Conference Centre (GICC), Liliendaal, which saw all of the approved civil society organisations in the 10 constituencies being summoned, and guidelines provided so as to have a final outcome of nominees of those categories to sit as members of the ERC.
Speaking to the Government Information Agency (GINA), Minister in the Ministry of Finance, Juan Edghill explained that the session saw a process being started that was initiated by the Committee of Appointment that summoned all of the approved civil society organisations in the 10 constituencies.
Minister Edghill said that the entities listed are in excess of 180 persons, and they were basically given guidelines for engaging with each other so that there will be a final outcome of the nominees. He said the process is expected to be completed by May 30.
“They were called to agree on a number of things, because, having had a briefing session where the guidelines were issued and given to them, all 10 groups had to meet in their clusters and agree on an entity to coordinate their work and agree on a nomination date and time of the elections,” Minister Edghill further explained.
He said that as of Wednesday, the process was out of the hands of the politicians, and with the civil society organisations.
A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) MP, Annette Ferguson, said that the session was record-breaking in that it was able to meet with all civil society groups to move the process forward to having the ERC reconstituted.
Ferguson added that her grouping was the youth bodies for which 41 representatives were present. “… we anticipate that the ERC will begin its functions shortly,” she noted.
Meanwhile, AFC MP Valerie Garrido-Lowe who supervised the Hindu, Muslim, Indigenous and African Groups, stated that the ERC is a constitutional body which plays an important role in the Guyanese society, and she too anticipated that it will be fully functional soon.
At the end of the process, when the nominees are received from the groups, the Committee will return with the list to the National Assembly, and with a majority vote, the nominees are sent to the president, and after his approval, the Speaker of the National Assembly will summon a meeting and they (the nominees) will vote for their chairperson and deputy chairperson, and thereafter, the ERC will begin functioning.
Members of each commission will receive a stipend and travelling allowance, if they are outside of Georgetown, to attend meetings of that body. Each commission has its own office in the ERC building in Queenstown.
The ERC of Guyana is a constitutional body established as an undertaking by the Herdmanston Accord and Constitutional Amendment Act of 2000 to serve Guyanese who believe that they are discriminated against because of their ethnicity.

(GINA)