COMMISSIONERS of the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry (CoI) are expected to arrive in Guyana early next week to discuss the final report of the commission. That report is scheduled to be completed by the end of November. Administrator for the Commission, Hugh Denbow told this publication on Tuesday that the commissioners are working towards the completion of the report before the end of November. “The commissioners are coming at the beginning of the next week…they will be working on the final report,” Denbow said.
The final sitting of the commission took place in July, but the move by government to abruptly halt the CoI was decried by members of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) the party of which Rodney was a founding member, and the People’s Progressive Party (PPP).
The Rodney Commission commenced hearings in 2013 under then President Ramotar. Both the WPA and the People’s National Congress (PNC) were represented through the commission’s 60+days of hearings. Since the change of government after the May 11 General and Regional Elections, the APNU+AFC coalition government discovered what it deemed to be “excessive spending” and said the commission’s work must be discontinued on this basis.
Former President Donald Ramotar protested the decision of the David Granger led administration to end the inquiry into the death of Rodney, a renowned Guyanese historian. Ramotar said the Rodney Commission was set up following a meeting with the members of the Rodney family. Like Ramotar, the Commissioners, lawyers for the WPA and members of the Rodney family were displeased.
Ramotar did agree that the CoI was an “expensive undertaking” but noted that it was “a justifiable one”.
“I have no doubt that the commissioners needed just a few weeks more to complete their tasks in a professional way,” Mr. Ramotar said. The logic behind saving “a few dollars when hundreds of millions have been spent already” was not evident to the former president. The abrupt closure he said will preclude commissioners receiving evidence from “important witnesses” who were yet to testify.
More than $400M was spent on the CoI. Minister of Legal Affairs and Attorney General Basil Williams said government simply could not afford to spend that amount of money. “We’re gonna wind it down,” we can’t afford it,” the minister said in June. Hundreds of millions was also spent on payment for the three commissioners, two attorneys, and a designated journalist from the Guyana Chronicle.