ONE must not be surprised at the criticisms coming from a former senior chieftain of the Peoples Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) against the coalition government for its recent amendments to the Local Government Act.

These amendments, as outlined, are intended to further modernise the operations of the country’s grassroots system of democracy. His statements are really reflections of the fears of his party that the local government landscape is rapidly changing to usher in the manner in which such a system should function–free from political interference, thereby returning the right to citizens at the grassroot levels, together with their respective local authority, the right to govern their own affairs.

This is what the coalition government of the A Partnership for National Unity+ Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) has ensured, through the historically held 2016 Local Government Elections.

This party grandee certainly knows what this means — the end of political party hegemony, such as what the PPP/C had exercised over their constituencies.
It was unthinkable that for all the decades that his party (PPP/C) governed this country, that local government elections were not held. Such a deliberate action, designed to continue the unenlightened policy of political party intrusion and control, only resulted in the abysmal decline of the rights of citizens at the community level, as well as the physical and environmental deterioration of communities.

This PPP/C elder is intelligent enough to understand that the continued control of such a system in a centralised manner has rendered the system untenable, as it has meant the stymieing of much-needed socio-economic development at the community level. In fact, for a country with such a vast geographic spread, it meant the overburdening of the centre, and the shutting out of crucial development support ideas from the local communities that should, in the main, be the influence and driver for the latter’s advancement.
Political control, such as has been the traditional practice of the PPP/C, cannot bring the kind of modernisation that is essential for the socio-economic growth and development of the nation’s regions and their communities. To continue with such a decrepit, archaic system of governing communities constitutes a disservice to good governance, and a crime against the right of the people and their communities to decide their own comforts and welfare.

This can only result in the consequence of denying the concerned citizens the critical human right to choose, as well as ensuring their remaining in the backwaters of development. With the holding of Local Government Elections has commenced the unfolding of the visionary concept of capital towns – a new vista in local governance that will accord communities greater autonomy in the administration of their daily affairs. This strike at the heart of the PPP/C’s outmoded and discredited strategy of control from the centre.

The innovative mechanism of capital towns has been designed to be the engine of regional socio-economic growth and development, whereby the maximization of the resource potential could be realised for the better welfare of the individual regions, their communities, and their citizens. Further, it is about introducing critical public services to local communities that could only have been accessed from the centralised public service system. And already, the results are fast becoming manifest, with passport and birth certificate services now available in these regions. Even the justice system is being made more accessible to the people with the creation of more magisterial districts.
Outmoded ways of governance, as reflected in the system of local government in the Guyana experience, have to be modified/change so as to make it more relevant to the needs of transforming regions and their communities. It cannot be envisaged, or even speak of improving the lives of our communities, in the decadent mind set of the ideological brand of political control as was, and still is, the mould of the PPP/C. Of course, that PPP/C member is entitled to his views; except that such reflect a mentality that is at odds with the modern development needs of a country and its communities, and are fast dissipating against the already sunshine of the latter.