Dear Editor
Local democracy at the municipal and Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) levels was restored by the APNU+AFC Coalition Government when after a twenty year hiatus, in 2016, Local Government Elections were held. In keeping with the constitution of Guyana, Local Government Elections were again held in 2018.
The actions of de facto Minister of Local Government and Regional Development Nigel Dharamlall, the PPP’s wild man and mini dictator, is eroding and impaling local democracy in Guyana.
His Ministry has dictatorially instructed NDCs how to spend their subvention of $5Million.
NDCs under the APNU+AFC Coalition Government received an increase in subvention from $3Million to $5Million for the purpose of executing projects of their choice. It was the view of the Coalition Government that the elected representatives of the respective constituencies best know the needs of the communities, hence the bottom-up approach. What we have now is Dharamlall illegally instructing the NDCs that they MUST spend $1Million of their subvention on street lights and $1.5Million on road repairs. This is total dictatorship and will not be accepted nor tolerated.
Some NDCs wrote to the Ministry informing that there is no need for street lighting and road repairs but Dharamlall is maintaining his dictatorial directive.
What is shocking is that only 28 solar street lights are being procured with the $1Million by the ministry for each NDC which works out to $35,714 per streetlight.
Any right thinking Guyanese would know that with $1M you can get double the amount of street lights as high as 300 watts. Even if installation cost is incorporated in the ministry’s price it is still too much.
I remind Guyanese that Guyana has 70 NDCs. 70 NDCs multiplied by 28 solar lights per NDC amounts to 1,960 lights multiplied by $35,714 equals $69,999,440 of taxpayers’ monies.
This dictatorial directive reeks of authoritarianism and could lead to malfeasance in the use of public monies.
Regards
Ganesh Mahipaul
Member of Parliament
