The Government has recently gazetted the appointment of the Board of Directors within the Agriculture sector and has excluded the main parliamentary Opposition, the A Partnership of National Unity and Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) that has 31 seats in the National Assembly. The political exclusion conflicts with Article 13 in Constitution of Guyana that prescribes the political system is one of “inclusionary democracy.”
As outlined by the article the principal objective of the political system is “…to establish an inclusionary democracy by providing increasing opportunities for the participation of citizens, and their organisations in the management and decision-making processes of the State, with particular emphasis on those areas of decision-making that directly affect their well-being.”
Refusing to stay silent to the continued exclusion and constitutional violation the Opposition has taken to its social media page and has stated the following:
Government continues to appoint State Board without inviting representatives from Opposition parties
In our press statement of 22 November 2022, we noted that as regards State Boards, “the current Leader of the Opposition has received no request from the government for an opposition representative, though several boards were recently appointed. This breach extends to boards on which the Opposition is a statutory member, such as the Guyana National Broadcasting Authority.”
We also observed: “Were the PPP government genuine about inclusion, one would have expected that it would have followed the practice of inviting the Opposition to be represented on a wide range of state boards, authorities, and commissions – whether or not the relevant statutes so dictated. It has completely ignored to do so. Instead, it has sneakily appointed and reappointed boards in several sectors.”
The fact that the government continues to sneak through these appointments further exposes its disdain for scrutiny and accountability.
