BRITISH High Commissioner to Guyana, James Quinn paid a courtesy call yesterday on Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo and assured him that the two countries can strengthen their working relationship in many sectors. During the meeting in the Office of the Prime Minister at the Ministry of the Presidency, Prime Minister Nagamootoo thanked the British High Commissioner for paying him a visit under the prevailing weather conditions.
The Prime Minister said that “being High Commissioner from Great Britain, our former mother country, you could imagine that the first order of our interest would be ‘how to help our parliamentary democracy’?”
He said further that as the Prime Minister, he is the Leader of the House and therefore “we will rely on our relationship with Britain as well as the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association to help us to continue the training of our personnel to help to strengthen our institutions, which is the Parliament and also our civil service.”
Nagamootoo noted that it is the order of the new Administration to aim for high standards and the reason for him mentioning the development of a college to this effect. “We want to aim at the high standards of the British civil service, and as the President (President David Granger) has said recently, we intend to elevate our training centre into a college and I took the opportunity of mentioning this to the High Commissioner.”
“The High Commissioner has always been a friend of Guyana and I have assured him of our continued interest in maintaining and improving the relationship,” Nagamootoo stated.
The Prime Minister thanked Quinn for the advocacy and intervention in the improved and enhanced democracy in Guyana, particularly the last General and Regional Elections with regards to statements certifying the elections as being free and fair.
The British High Commissioner reiterated that “to be a 150% clear, my Government’s view is that the last elections were free and fair and creditable and represents the views of the majority of the Guyanese people and there is no doubt in our minds that anything has been changed.”
Quinn added that “as the Prime Minister said there are a variety of areas that we can work on to deliver our services, notably in Parliament.”
High Commissioner Quinn assured the Prime Minister that “as we go forward in the coming months there will be many other meetings such as this and I look forward to doing what I can to assist and as a representative of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, we will work together to strengthen our relationship in whatever way we can.”

By Rebecca Ganesh