The viability of changes in the rural areas depends
on the commitment of the PPP/C and PNCR to fundamental change

Posted September 22nd. 2004 - By Clarence Ellis and David Hinds

We agree with Mr. Abu Bakr that our recommendations for Local Government Reform are similar to the ROAR federal proposal.(See SN. Sept.19th. on "Are the massive changes in rural areas proposed by Mr. Ellis viable?"). However, the explicit linking of our recommendations to the existing political and administrative systems makes them more implementable. Our suggestions provide a framework for strengthening ancestral heritages and for horizontal interacting between the respective traditions. The resulting institutional arrangements are flexible in that democratically elected councillors can provide community oversight. This arrangement provides the environment for reducing the fear that has resulted from retaliatory physical violence, crime and community policing groups. Each race can and should be "living the mutational process at its own pace and making its own choices," as Mr. Bakr eloquently puts it.

Our proposal does not address the needs of Black rural communities only but East Indian and Amerindian communities as well. We envisage the eventual modernisation of rice farming and sugar producing areas into co-operative arrangements in which farmers can participate in the ownership of rice mills and sugar factories. In all communities, co-operatives in the ownership of food and fruit processing factories will provide stimulus to production by the potential for sharing profits from the processing activities. We borrow this idea from Mr. Carl Greenidge who always envisaged this possibility when working for the State Planning Secretariat. As mentioned in the letter, these arrangements work well in the U.S.A. and in Belize.

A focus on economic transformation and growth in the context of racial peace constitutes the vision that should guide the process of fundamental change. But for success in what we recommend, both the PPP/C and the PNCR must embrace these ideas as additions to the present proposals for Local Government Reform. WPA, ROAR and GAP should be included in a Parliamentary Oversight Committee to assign priorities in the steps to be pursued for substantial change in local government / governance. Characterisation of the changes as massive will be frightening in an environment that is insecure and wary of bold change.

Viability will depend further on a change in the PPP culture to accept full transparency in the allocation of resources to the Regions. The PPP and the Public Accounts Committee can, in this very year of 2004, take the step of arriving at a total amount of financial resources (current and capital) that will be made available to the ten regions with the proposed allocations to the respective regions in 2005. The total, the allocation and the criteria for the allocation can be made available to the public by the end of November. The Regional Democratic Councils can undertake their suggested allocations to the Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDCs) by the middle of December. These decisions and the criteria for arriving at the allocations should also be published in the press. By early January, NDCs and Regions can submit their suggestions for changes with reasons that can be based on the viability of their own plans and on the fairness of the allocations among Regions and NDCs.

All of this can take place before the 2005 Budget decisions are finalised. If this is done, the first step towards ensuring success of our proposals will have been taken. This change will breathe fresh air into government / governance.

The second major step towards viability is the constitutional change to place all executive authority in the hands of the Regional Executive Officer (REO). If this is pursued with the raising of salaries of the REOs and with the decision to train the REOs on the job in the principles of public administration, the framework will be established for taking back the country from the Colombians and the Brazilians.

Simultaneous with the constitutional change of the role of the REOs should be the change in the role of the Regional Chairman (RC) and the Regional Democratic Councillors. Their remit will be several. First is the grasp of community development prospects-new crops, increasing yields of old crops, establishing viable farms, marketing, functioning of co-operatives and resolution of conflicts. Councillors should facilitate the development process and not dictate its progress. They can be the community development officers that Mr. Bakr remembers. Their oversight functions both of the communities and of the office of the REO greatly increase the importance of their roles as compared with their present functions.

The extent to which the community will achieve growth will be a function of the drive and energy of the community as well as of the diligence in the functioning of the main Parliamentary Oversight Committee (PPP/C, PNCR, WPA, GAP, ROAR). That Committee should appraise community performances and make efforts to help lagging communities if Regional Councillors seem unable to assist. This arrangement addresses Mr. Bakr's concern with the under achievement of the Amerindian communities. Under achievement is widespread and requires an over arching national mechanism for dealing with the deficiency.

Crucial to these changes is the redrawing of community boundaries and the eventual withdrawal of the Neighbourhood Democratic Councils. As mentioned in the letter, the town of Anna Regina is not a town. For about one and a half miles along the Essequibo Coast, the town of Anna Regina is a town. For about 6 miles, the town of Anna Regina is primarily a strip of houses along the road and a four to five mile depth of rice fields. The villages are similarly placed in dysfunctional arrangements. These should be re-drawn. We do not have to relive the dysfunctionality of the European powers in the Berlin 1871 arrangement that has left Africa in continuous turmoil. The Parliamentary Oversight Committee, comprised as suggested, is ideally situated to oversee the redefining of community boundaries. Publicity in respect of the reasons for the changes will avoid the clandestine method that was used when the present boundaries were drawn.

These changes ought not to be conceived as justified on the basis of the proportion of Afro-Guyanese still living and working in villages. No community of Afro-Guyanese should be neglected even if they are only a few. The approach to justifying these changes on the proportion of Afro-Guyanese in the villages misses the point of the general welfare improvement that will accrue to all communities. It is the top-down approach to community welfare that is similar to the arrogance that inspired the 1871 Berlin Conference and Agreement. It is that top-down approach that leads to the clientilism that feeds the egos of politicians and that destroys the spirit of self help that should inspire community development.

In respect of the financing of production projects, the fundamental principle to bear in mind is that finance and production are interdependent. The mistake has been made in the past was to consider them separately. Once sound projects are conceived, adequate finance will be available. What is desperately needed is the reduction of corruption in the legal system that delays redress in the failure to meet loan repayments and that distributes land unfairly.

But funding difficulties will exist in the need to finance the rehabilitation and extension of infrastructure. Take Buxton, for example. The main canal to the backdam is clogged. Travelling by boat to the backdam is difficult. Merely repairing the roads in the housing area is not enough. Substantial financing is required for the transportation infrastructure to the backdam and for restoring the irrigation infrastructure to bring potable water from the reservoir to the residential areas. Easier access to the backdam will reduce the area for criminals to hide. This is only one example of the massive amounts of finance that is needed for improving the infrastructure.

Much of this funding can come from a more efficient system of property taxation. There are massive buildings that have been erected all over Guyana, many of them financed by drug money. Those buildings pay little taxes. That situation should change. That change requires reduction of the partisanship that motivates the undertaxation of political supporters. The bureaucratic solution to which Mr. Bakr refers can produce results only if there is greater enlightenment in politicians.

There are four bureaucratic issues that should be considered in the effort to enhance taxation. The first is the design of the tax system. That requires competence in the Revenue Authority. Such competence has to be rewarded with adequate remuneration. The Public Accounts Committee should include this consideration in its mandate.

The second issue is that of the hiring and paying of the taxation officials. Again, the

Public Accounts Committee should be pronouncing on the salaries of taxation officials.

The third issue is the protection of these officials from the bandits who now control much of the country. In that respect, the GDF and the Police Force should be regarded as part of the tax collecting community to the extent that they provide protection to the tax collecting officers. This is another area that should become part of the remit of the Public Accounts Committee.

The fourth issue is the modernisation of the Civil Service. In this computer age, our Civil Service operates with typewriters that are museum pieces. In our embassy in technologically advanced Washington, D.C., U.S.A., one of the support staff types information on life certificates on a typewriter that is perhaps 25 years old. In the Ministries in Guyana, each officer should be equipped with a computer and all computers in an office should be linked in a local area network (LAN). The resulting data base will increase the speed in retrieving data by light years. The improved data bases and shared access will help to reduce the fraud that, at present, paralyses the system. It should be possible to consider a national network that will link the accounting offices in the Regions to the Ministry of Finance and the accounts officers in the community councils to the Chief Accountant in the REO's office.

When seen in these terms, the enhancement of taxation will depend, in part, on bringing the system of government / governance out of its present backwardness, and, in part, on more oversight from the Public Accounts Committee. If the Government approaches the Bill Gates Foundation, it will, in all likelihood, receive assistance for the acquisition of the computers required if the Foundation is satisfied with the welfare improvement to be achieved. The training of the skills necessary for the computerised system will increase productivity a hundredfold. And it will then become obvious that we don't have to destroy one another to survive. That is not debatable.

In large measure, all of this will be academic if the GDF is not equipped with helicopters and patrol boats to fly over the hinterland, manage the borders and monitor off-shore fishing operations. This equipment is required immediately. Our traditional donors should be approached for such equipment on a loan basis. Enhanced revenues will repay the loans.

We acknowledge that these changes cannot all be implemented immediately. The transparency in the budgetary process, the transfer of executive authority to the REOs, the re-defining of the community boundaries can all be achieved within the next year. The viability, in the final analysis, rests on the acceptance by the PPP/C and the PNCR that the way forward requires more comprehensive change in local government reform than is pursued at present. We will forward suggestions for Georgetown in the context of our comments on the draft of the National Development Strategy.