On April 1, Guyanese learned about President Irfaan Ali’s plan to “decentralise” some ministries, government agencies, and even his own office. According to the announcement by the head of state, the new arrangement would bring central government offices into various communities, and thereby, make government services more accessible to people who reside in far-flung areas. On the face of it, the initiative may appear to be a positive development.
However, Guyanese are fully aware – whether they admit it or not – that any new plan announced by the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) regime needs to be carefully dissected and examined. One always has to ask, what is the PPP up to? That question always arises because the PPP is not known for doing anything exclusively for the benefit of ordinary Guyanese. There is always a catch; there is always something in it for the PPP. And so it is with the plan that the president unveiled on All Fools Day.
An examination of the announced initiative reveals that nothing in it involves decentralisation. In fact, that word should not even be used to describe the PPP’s newest scheme. Instead, the plan, as described by the PPP regime, is the opposite of decentralisation; it is actually the consolidation of the power of central government. The plan is all about spreading out the central government. That is, the central government of the PPP regime intends to spread its tentacles into all parts of Guyana. That is not decentralisation; that is akin to metastasis – the process by which cancer spreads from its point of origin to far-flung areas of the body.
At this point, one may ask, what is decentralisation? The answer is, decentralisation is the transfer or devolution of power from central government to local government bodies.
In the PPP’s plan there is no transfer of power. Instead, the PPP regime will still hold all power but will now be invading far-flung communities. As such, there is no decentralisation in the PPP regime’s move.
A true example of decentralisation is what the A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) Coalition started to do.
Guyanese will recall that during the Coalition’s tenure, four new capital towns were established: Lethem, Bartica, Mabaruma, and Mahdia. Those new towns were formed to take decision-making power away from the central government and place it into the hands of the people. That is true decentralisation.
The process of establishing capital towns in every region was, of course, halted by the PPP regime. That is not surprising, after all, it is well known that the PPP regime wants control of everything; the regime despises decentralised governance.
What the Coalition was attempting to do – before the PPP regime was installed – was take away, or devolve political and administrative power from Georgetown, and give it entirely to local government organs.
The philosophical position of the devolution and decentralisation of power on which the Coalition based its policies was premised on the mandate articulated on Article 13 of the Constitution.
Article 13 states: “The principal objective of the political system of the State 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.”
One will recall, too, that two local government elections (LGE) were held by the Coalition, one in March 2016, and the other in November 2018. Now that a PPP regime is in office, it knows that it cannot do what it did before 2015, and simply refuse to hold LGE because Guyanese – having had a taste of real democracy under the Coalition – will protest. As such, the PPP is under pressure to hold LGE, but, as Guyanese know, there are massive “irregularities,” even before the LGE scheduled for June 12.
Having the facts, what the PPP regime is doing becomes obvious. The ruling administration is not decentralising anything, instead it is hardening central government’s grip on power by spreading central government into all parts of Guyana, and invading the political space of local government organs in contravention of the Constitution of Guyana.
