Dear Editor,

IF the article published in Stabroek News that the one-term former APNU+AFC Minister of Public Telecommunications, Cathy Hughes is being probed by the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) over her incendiary social media post  “calling for an undesirable and dangerous action which can potentially impact negatively on ethnic relations” is accurate, then a thorough investigation is warranted. However, it begs the question as to what the ERC means by an “investigation”. Since its formation as part of the Herdmanston Accord, brokered by CARICOM on January 17, 1998 and assented by President Bharrat Jagdeo on August 11, 2000, the ERC has accomplished very little, if any success. The ERC was founded in the aftermath of the People’s National Congress (PNC)-induced protests and riots following the 1997 General Election, which they claimed was fatally flawed. It was officially launched in 2003, and was supposed to be independent and autonomous, but is it? Its performance since then can hardly be described as satisfactory, but more like a failure.

The ERC’s mandate, as adumbrated in Article 212A of the Constitution, is wide-ranging and includes the widest possible participation of Guyanese civil society, defined broadly to include non-governmental organisations, religious Christian, Hindu and Muslim groups, labour unions, the private sector, youth groups, women’s organisations, and Afro and Indo-Guyanese, and Indigenous/Amerindian bodies. Its primary goal is to identify and analyse factors that have inhibited the attainment of harmonious relations among ethnic groups, particularly the barriers to their participation in any social, economic, commercial, financial, cultural and political endeavours, and make recommendations to the National Assembly how these factors should be overcome. After a hiatus of eight years, between 2010 and 2018, the ERC was reconstituted by the APNU+AFC government in 2018, with the promise to finally address the ethnic and racial divide and fears that drove the political system in Guyana, especially during elections. It never did.

Truth be told, the ERC, like so many organisations established by the Government, is like tigers without teeth, which means they are either powerless to act, or they are reactive instead of being proactive. Simply put, the ERC has been a complete failure, in that it will inform the public that it has launched an investigation, but would not reveal its findings to the public, or if it has completed the investigation. It must be concluded that the ERC never really fulfilled the promise of its formation, and blame should be laid squarely at the feet of the two main political parties for selfish, bigoted and partisan political reasons that are well known to the public.

During the five-month combative warfare waged by the APNU+AFC to remain in office through rigged elections, the ERC had numerous opportunities to intervene in the racially-charged environment created by social media and some politicians, but it never did. The ERC should have also intervened and prevented the racially- charged violence that ensued in the aftermath of the brutal slaying of the Henry cousins at Cotton Tree, West Coast Berbice, and the vicious murders of Haresh Singh and Prettipaul Hargobin, but it did not. The ERC is a status-quo organisation to show-case the Government’s stance against racism and inequality, but there is not one iota of evidence to justify its existence. It is time for the Government to re-evaluate the role and functions of the ERC, to make sure that it is worth spending more than $200 million of the taxpayers’ hard-earned money annually on an organisation that continues to malfunction, if not irrelevant in society. It is not worth it. It is our opinion, as well as many in the public that the government should stop the wasteful usage of the taxpayers’ money to prop up the functionless ERC.

Yours Truly,
Dr. Asquith Rose.