By Vanessa Braithwaite
BRINGING an end to three years of an Interim Management Committee was the recent swearing in of the Chairman, Vice-Chairman and 10 councillors to man the community’s Neighbourhood Democratic Council.Resulting from the March 18th Local Government Elections was the APNU+AFC party securing seven seats on the council, while the independent group Kwakwani United for Progress secured five seats. Mourna Adrian and Kelvin Daley who contested the elections under APNU+AFC were elected as Chairman and Vice-Chairman respectively. The other councillors under APNU+AFC who were sworn in were: Danetta Jefferey, Orvil August, Leon Conway, Jennifer Mc Pherson and Carl Liverpool. Kwakwani United for Progress councillors are: Charles Thom, Wanetta Leaock, Faye Rodriques, Malika Russel and Sharmella Thompson.

The councillors promised to work together for the betterment of the community and to focus on burning issues such as road repairs and construction, drainage and cleaning up the community. “Right now the community is in a state and we will be focusing on cleaning it up and dealing with the drainage as our motto is: “Cleanliness is next to Godliness,” posited APNU+AFC councillor Carl Liverpool.

KUFP councillor Charles Thom said that even though the results were a bit disappointing, his team will work with the APNU+AFC councillors in an effort to develop the community. “We are here not to fight, we accept that they won and we will support them, but we will also be critical of them,” he affirmed. Thom revealed that priority would be given to constructing better roads, drainage and sanitation, creating job opportunities and providing training for school leavers.

Kwakwani had one of the highest voter turnouts in the country with 65% of residents supporting the elections. The APNU+AFC candidates claim that their two-seat majority victory is a result of 100% hard work that everyone had put into the campaign. The independent group, Kwakwani United for Progress won constituencies 1 and 3 but was granted five seats consisting of two First-Past-the-Post and three under Proportional Representation, as they won by a large margin in constituency 1.

Former IMC chairman of the NDC, Sachi Parvaton, is calling upon the Ministry of Communities to appoint an overseer to the NDC, since councillors have been sworn in, and the entity has been functioning without one since 2013. The absence of this important figure, she said, has stymied the efforts of the NDC as it cannot function effectively without an overseer.

She noted that the duty of the overseer is to give guidance and consent on financial matters and to deal with the administrative issues of the NDC. “They need to appoint an overseer as early as possible, because the committee will be dysfunctional without one, it is just to say we have a committee but nothing else,” she said.