-Minister Dharamlall says while refuting claims of racial preference

By Cassandra Khan
MINISTER of Local Government and Regional Development, Nigel Dharamlall, on Thursday refuted claims that the government is only awarding contracts to persons of a certain ethnic group.

He addressed the issue when he appeared as a guest on The Guyana Dialogue, a Facebook programme.

The minister told viewers that the remarks made by an associate of the political opposition were neither factual nor truthful.

“From the video that I saw of him stating that persons of a certain ethnic group are not getting contracts, I believe that is totally dishonest of him to say so because it is not the case. As a matter of fact, some of the biggest contractors we have in this country are contractors who have generated a lot of their growth from the policy directives of successive governments of the PPP/C,” he related.

Minister Dharamlall stated that there is a concerted effort being made to ensure that everyone who is interested in Guyana’s development and who have the necessary resources, skills, and wherewithal to contribute to the development, benefit from the procurement process.

“As a matter of fact, procurement in Guyana is one of our great achievements to the extent that most of the procurement is open nationally, and so anyone is eligible to bid for contracts,” he added.

The Local Government Minister related that he can say without fear of contradiction that Guyanese from “all walks of life, across the ethnic divide,” have been benefitting from contracts worth tens of millions and hundreds of millions of dollars, specifically the Afro-Guyanese contractors.

“And I can say again, very factually, that we have contractors of African origin or Afro-Guyanese in all ten regions of Guyana bidding for contracts at both the regional level as well as at the national level,” Minister Dharamlall said.

When asked about plans to publicise the evidence, Minister Dharamlall said that this will be done at some point but because the individuals are private, permission must first be sought. He added that information is available on the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board website.

“If you go on the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board website, you will see who these contractors are,” he said.
When asked about the difference between the Local Government Commission (LGC) and his Ministry, Minister Dharamlall related that the LGC is one of the principal commitments that Former President Bharrat Jagdeo made to the people of Guyana to enhance local democracy.

“We have since been working in that direction to make sure that we work very closely with the Local Government Commission,” he said.

Minister Dharamlall stated that the LGC is responsible for the administration of the Local Democratic Organs (LDOs) which are specific to the Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDCs) and the Municipal Councils.

“Their function has to mostly do with administrative issues in terms of recruitment, in terms of terminations, in terms of disciplining… those types of administrative things at the level of the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development,” he explained.

Minister Dharamlall said that his ministry works more at a policy level to make sure that the vision of the President is implemented by all stakeholders within the local government system.

“The Local Government Commission is one of those stakeholders that work with us to make sure that there is better delivery… so they’re not just advisory, but they have a principal day-to-day function. They also work like I said, administratively,” he related.

As for policies, he explained that those are a mandate of the cabinet, so, policies are developed at the level of the cabinet and it is expected of stakeholders that they work on a common cause to make sure that these policies are effectuated.

Minister Dharamlall shared that there are 70 NDCs, 10 RDCs, and 10 municipal councils.

“The local government system oversees those 70 NDCs and 10 municipal councils, but, in the wider definition of the local government system. We also have 10 RDCs that govern the 10 regions of Guyana,” he related.

He said that the entire cabinet and the rest of the government share the responsibility for different issues across the country.

“In terms of regional development, our mandate includes the administration of regional education as well as regional health. Of course, we have the guiding ministries or the policy ministries, ministry of education and health. We also have a public works programme in regional development as well as an agricultural programme. So yes, we capture a lot of what has to happen in government and across the country,” the Local Government Minister further explained.

In terms of the budget process, he said that there is a National Budget and every region is an agency in the budget.

“…to say that the budget of one ministry is different from another, I think would be doing a disservice to how the budget process operates. So, we do a lot of the small things in the 10 regions, a lot of the road building is done through the Ministry of Public Works. The solar investments are done through the Office of the Prime Minister. The drainage and irrigation is done through the Ministry of Agriculture. Some of the road construction in the interior will be done by our ministry as well as the Ministry of Public Works and in some cases, the Ministry of Natural Resources. So, we tend to share resources based on what is available and based on the type of work that has to be done,” he said.

He related that there is a system where daily information is collected at the local level and then filtered up into some of the executing agencies.

“So those handled at the level of the region will be done by the region. The regions, their budgets also require them to construct roads and to fix potholes and to do drainage and irrigation,” he said.

He added that the ministries work as a team.

“So, for example, in road building, we will have a team from the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, from Public Works, and from the Ministry of Finance, that will all go to the engineers and do the assessment of the physical conditions of the roads and then that decision is made at the level of the different ministers and the cabinet to decide on what we can do. And of course, all of this depends a lot on the resources available,” he said.

“It really doesn’t matter who funds it, what is important is that it gets done,” the Minister added.