Dear Editor,
It is most shameful to know that none of the new Neighbourhood Democratic Councils is provided with the required office, an assigned Overseer or the appropriate staff to undertake service activities for the benefit of residing residents. More serious is the fact that with all the boasting by the coalition Government about early budget, none of the new NDCs has received a single cent as subvention. These and other baseless inclusions on the coalition’s agenda, confirms the farcical and usually visionless delusion with which they are associated and often disguise.
Some of these NDCs are not collecting rates and taxes because the ‘Areas’ are not regularised. Hence, the elected councillors are unable to do anything while the Minister of Communities and the Government are barking about how many new NDCs they established. The fact is that the creation of the new NDCs serves more as an embarrassment to the Government because these establishments are not functioning and no arrangements are in place for these bodies to carry out their mandated functions in the short term. It is clear that in 2018, the Government rushed to have nine new Local Authority Areas with the hope of including their support base to vote at the Local Government Elections, considering the massive defeat they would have suffered in 2016.
Now that the elections are completed and the results favoured the PPP, the new LAAs are left on their own. The system is failing and the APNU/AFC Government doesn’t care. Their plans didn’t pay off and the new LAAs didn’t deliver to them the expected votes because the PPP has made inroads. It begs the question: What’s next for the new LAAs? Now that they are official statutory bodies, they should be allowed to carry out their mandate to offer the required services to the people and their communities.
The recently appointed Member of Parliament, Donna Mathoo, of the AFC is one of significant national interest, given the massive evidence of mass corruption at the Berbice NCN branch which she headed. It is strange and notable that Mathoo didn’t resign her position as a Councillor of the Region Six Regional Democratic Council before swearing in as a Member of Parliament. This incompetent cabal continues to make a mockery of the National Assembly too.
Sincerely,
Neil Kumar
