Backbenchers do their work quietly behind the scenes
Berbice supervisor takes up region's issues in parliament


Zulfikar Mustapha is one of the newer members of the National Assembly. His name was extracted from the PPP/C's National List of Candidates in February, after Kumkarran Ramdass resigned his seat to take up the post of chairman of the Region Six (East Corentyne/Berbice) Regional Democratic Council.

Since then, Mustapha has been appointed a member of the parliamentary sector committee on economic services and an alternate member of the parliamentary sector committee on natural resources.

Mustapha has been involved in politics in one form or another from his primary school days, first, as a member of the Progressive Organisation of Pioneers and later as a member of the Progressive Youth Organisation (PYO) during his secondary school years. He was also an active member of the National Students' Council.

He is currently a member of the PYO's executive committee and chairs its finance committee and is a member of his party's Central Committee to which he was elected last year. He is his party's Berbice supervisor with responsibility for its organisations in Region Five (Mahaica/Berbice) as well as Region Six.

Mustapha also retains his seat on the Region Six Regional Democratic Council as well as his chairmanship of its Local Government Committee and membership of its Works and Housing committees.

Though not a regional parliamentarian, his party has assigned him responsibility for the area which stretches from Number 43 Village, Corentyne to Orealla on the Berbice River.

Mustapha says he visits the area about three times per month but as his party's Berbice supervisor, and interacts on a daily basis with people from the various communities in Regions Five and Six. He says too, he also learns of the issues affecting the various communities in Berbice from his visits to the various groups.

He says that his representations on behalf of his constituents usually produce positive results and recalls his efforts on behalf of the people of Gibraltar, where the phone company had planted poles and established an exchange but made no lines available to its residents. Mustapha said that the position was corrected after he made representations to the President and the Prime Minister.

More recently, he says, it was representation to the President about the deteriorating supply of electricity to the region that led to the Prime Minister being dispatched to the Berbice area and steps being taken to alleviate the hardship residents faced.

Mustapha says that because of his responsibilities as the Berbice supervisor for his party, he takes a keen interest in all aspects of government activity so that he could better represent the issues raised with by residents in the various communities for which he has parliamentary and party political responsibility.

He says too that based on his observations when he was outside the National Assembly, he finds the present parliament deliberative open and observes that the members have the privilege of raising issues of concern to them.

Mustapha recalls too that at the recent meeting of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, which he attended with Minister in the Ministry of Labour and Human Services, Bibi Shadick, and PNC/R parliamentarian Amna Ally in Pakistan, he was surprised to learn that constitutional reforms introduced here about two years ago, other countries in the Commonwealth were now looking at introducing.

Mustapha believes that the stipend parliamentarians now receive is inadequate; especially for those who are members of parliamentary committees. However, he does not believe that there should be special consideration for those parliamentarians who are self-employed. He explains that when they took the decision to stand for election they would have informed themselves about the time they would have to devote to their parliamentary work and the level of remuneration they would receive.

Mustapha, who is married and the father of two boys, grew up in Bloomfield Village on the Corentyne Coast where he still resides. He attended the Auchlyne Primary School and the Corentyne Comprehensive High School, from which he graduated in 1986.

After leaving school he worked as a postman, then as a clerk with Guysuco's Local Accounts Office before proceeding to the then Soviet Union to study Industrial Relations on a scholarship awarded him by the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers' Union (GAWU). On his return in 1989, he joined GAWU's staff as a clerk and by the time he left its employ in 2000 had risen to the position of assistant general secretary (an elected post).


Backbenchers do their work quietly behind the scenes
Allen plugs education, community well-being from backbench


Genevieve Allen is not particularly enamoured with her backbench position in the National Assembly. She says the facilities leave a lot to be desired.

There is no research assistance, nor is any office space available for Members of Parliament to meet and talk with constituents. But she feels that in time, she will be able to make a difference in the two areas about which she feels passionate - education and the well-being of her constituents.

Allen is one of the two parliamentary representatives for Region Four (Demerara/Mahaica). She represents the residents of East Bank Demerara and a section of the Soesdyke-Linden Highway.

She is a divorcee and the mother of three children - two girls and a boy - all of whom she describes as grown up.

Allen has lived at Beterverwagting for all of the 44 years of her life. She traces her ancestry on her mother's side to Wolf-A-Sury, one of the first freed slaves to purchase land at Beterverwagting and who was its first overseer. On her father's side she traces it to Quamina, one of the leaders of the slave rebellion at Le Resouvenir. It is not surprising then that Currents Affairs has discovered that she is related to Minister of Education, Dr Henry Jeffrey, who himself hails from Buxton

She sees no incongruity with her representation of the East Bank Demerara portion of the Region Four constituency, because of her experience gained as a councillor on the Region Four Regional Democratic Council, to which she was elected in 1997.

Allen traces her political career back to the mid '80s and says that her motivation was the desire to help ensure greater development for her community. This led her to join the People's National Congress, as it then was.

Allen has served as group secretary, group chairman and as secretary to the Industry/La Reconnaissance PNC District as a well as member of PNC regional council for Demerara/Mahaica.

She is also a member of the National Congress of Women, though when she joined it in 1985, it was called the Women's Revolutionary Socialist Movement. She is the assistant national secretary and is in her second term in this post. She has served at the various levels in this organisation as well.

In 1994, she stood for election for the Neighbourhood Democratic Council for the BV/Triumph area as a member of the BV/Triumph Development Association. She was the vice-chairman of the council and chaired its finance committee. The PNC did not contest these elections at the NDC level but encouraged the formation of community groups to contest the elections.

Allen explains that in her constituency work she would normally relate with the various NDCs in the area and where applicable, would approach the regional administration on their behalf.

She visits the areas regularly and usually is in some areas on the East Bank or Linden-Soesdyke Highway three times per week. Other areas she visits once a fortnight. During these visits she taps into a network of community activists to update herself on the issues affecting the residents of the various communities.

She says that a lot of time is spent representing issues that affect the residents of the unregularised (squatting) areas, and recalls representing issues to the Housing Ministry concerning the demolition of the homes of persons who have been in these areas for a considerable length of time. Allen says that the issue was settled amicably as the ministry reviewed its decisions.

Another issue she recalls, which concerned the residents at Yarrowkabra, was the construction of a road that was planned to end at a certain point, but which the residents wanted extended to include an undeveloped area in the community. She says that the matter has been resolved but the project is yet to commence as the funds have not yet been allocated.

She says that during the period when her party boycotted the work of the National Assembly, a lot of time was devoted to representing the interests of her constituents at the various levels of government.

Allen says that her experience so far in the National Assembly has fallen short of her expectations as there is no research assistance and no office space provided where she can meet and talk with her constituents. "We work in a situation where you have to work with the facilities available."

Allen says that she welcomed the announcement by the Speaker, during the last sitting of parliament that parliamentarians, would now have access to the Internet. She observes wryly that though the electoral system provided for the election of regional parliamentarians no physical facilities to accommodate them have been made available.

Asked about her preparation for sittings of the National Assembly, Allen says that she would normally do her own research on the issues being addressed in the various bills being brought before the house and this includes reading relevant material to get a general idea of the topic under consideration. She also consults with the other members of her party to ascertain what her party's position on the issue is, but she says, that she should not be considered a robot who follows the party's line blindly. As a disciplined member she says that she follows the party line but that does not say that she would not have made an input when the issue was being discussed before a position was adopted.

Allen is far from enthused with the level of remuneration paid to parliamentarians and hopes that there would be some increase in the level soon.

Allen is one of the PNC/R parliamentarians who approached the minister in the Ministry of Social Services in connection with school uniform assistance for needy persons in the various communities. She says that the experience is far from satisfying as although they complied with the minister's request for lists of persons to be supplied, few of the persons on the list her party provided received assistance. But these persons could tell of a friend across the street who did.

Allen says that a better system would be for the Local Boards of Guardians for the various areas to compile the list of persons who should be provided with assistance in purchasing uniforms; since they are in touch with the community and are required to approve the claims of persons applying for public assistance.

Allen completed her training as a teacher at the Lilian Dewar College of Education in 1983 and teaches Pre-Vocational Industrial Arts. She has been a senior mistress at the Kingston Practical Instruction Centre since 1996. She received her primary and secondary education at BV and was among the first batch of students to enroll at the BV Community High School.

Allen is a graduate of the Government Technical Institute, where she obtained the City and Guilds Craft Practice Certificate Part 1. She worked at LBI sugar estate and Farrell Engineering before deciding to take up teaching.

Despite her busy schedule, Allen still finds time to be part of the National Democratic Institute's programme to train women for participation in the upcoming local government elections. So far, she has participated in training sessions in Regions 4, 6, 7 and 10.


The University of Guyana at 40 - PtII [part I]
Science, Agriculture and Technology Faculties Need to attract more students Many graduates do very

Introduction

In this second article on the University of Guyana (UG) at 40, Current Affairs looks at the faculties of Natural Sciences, Agriculture and Technology. More than the others, these three science-based faculties are likely to feel the effects of poor/no laboratory facilities and inadequate essential texts in the university's library, which are among the shortcomings of UG about which its detractors complain.

Current Affairs sought the comments of the deans of these faculties - Phillip DaSilva, Dr Patricia Francis and Dr William Wilson - about whether some of the claims made by critics were factual and how the faculties were addressing them.

One critic, UG lecturer Freddie Kissoon, has claimed that the degree with distinction in the science subjects obtained by the top UG graduates was not equivalent to that offered by other universities because of the lack of resources. He likened the performance of the graduates who go onto other universities to read for higher degrees to the flowering of the untrained mind in an environment where all the required resources are available.

Current Affairs also spoke with recently-appointed deputy vice-chancellor, Al Creighton, about Kissoon's charges with regard to the lack of transparency in the award of scholarships to UG staff, nepotism, inadequate resources for research, political interference, as well as whether or not the university was meeting its mandate of providing the trained personnel required for the country's development.

Creighton has been at UG for more than a decade and was at one time dean of the Faculty of Arts. His appointment as deputy vice-chancellor departs from the tradition of the senior dean being appointed to the position. There has been no hue and cry about it by the usual critics of the university's administration, perhaps because the senior dean, Dr Mark Kirton, has raised no objection. The appointment is a prerogative of the vice-chancellor, whose choice is normally approved by the university's council.

Two of the issues, which Current Affairs asked Creighton to address, are the appointment of his predecessor, Dr Marilyn Cox, as director of the Office of Resource Mobilisation and Planning, and the appointment of a director for the Tain campus. Kissoon claims that the university administration was less than transparent with both appointments.

Kissoon claims that Dr Cox is not qualified for her current post, as she holds no advanced degrees in planning. Creighton merely points out that during her tenure as deputy vice-chancellor, Dr Cox had managed the Office of Resource Mobilisation and Planning for three years. He observes too that as dean she had been an administrator at the faculty level.

About the appointment of a director for the Tain campus, Creighton, aware that the issue is before the courts, points to the requirement that all directorships and academic posts occupied by persons past retirement must be advertised.

Political Interference

Another charge made by Kissoon that Current Affairs asked Creighton to address is that of political interference. He conceded that there is some but not as much as many people would like to think or would lead the people to think. However, he added, "I would like to see less of it. There is a bit more than I think there ought to be."

Creighton observes that Governments must understand that a university has to be independent. "If it is controlled or run by politicians, people will not take it seriously."

He asserts that the public and some people who make public statements do not really understand the relationship between the political directorate and the University in this context. "It has to do with the composition of the Council, which has representatives of Government, the ruling party, the main opposition party, representatives of civil society, of the professionals, labour, industry, and other social partners. They can influence decisions of the Council by coming to meetings and representing their positions. But the President cannot give instructions to UG or the Vice Chancellor. If there is something he wants to happen, his representatives will have to come to the Council and propose it. Appointments at UG are made by the Appointments Committee and Council."

Creighton points out that the Council's role is to direct policy and developmental directions and that while the university's management is accountable to the Council, the day to day running of the university should be left to the Vice Chancellor and the university's management. He adds that the Council should assist in securing resources for UG and that should be the role of the Chancellor and Pro-Chancellor.

The problems of the university

Creighton blames most of the problems UG faces on the lack of resources. He explains that student population today has far outgrown the facilities that were provided when the Turkeyen campus was established in 1969.

He concedes that there is need for more buildings, and for more and larger lecture rooms even with the accommodation being provided by the recently constructed Cheddi B Jagan Lecture Rooms, as well as for better sanitary facilities, which he described as less than desirable at the moment.

Creighton points out that though there is space to accommodate new buildings the university does not have the money to construct them.

Creighton argues that the annual subvention from the government of around $392 million in 2002-2003 is totally inadequate and that the capital budget allocated is usually very small. He says that a significant portion of the university's revenues comes from the student loan scheme and for 2002-2003, the University earned $506 million from students' fees coming through these loans. The loan scheme is run by the Ministry of Finance and is entirely funded by the government.

However, he notes that the fee being charged per year ($127000) is not the economic cost for training a student at UG. He says that the economic cost has to take into account salaries, equipment cost, buildings and other recurrent and capital costs.

DaSilva and Wilson also agree that the tuition fee is too low and needs to be increased. DaSilva points out that the fees at private secondary schools are higher, as well as the fees at the University of the West Indies and St George's University in Grenada. He says too that if higher fees are charged, there should be a commitment to the provision of better facilities.

Responding to comments that increased fees could put university education beyond the reach of the poor, DaSilva says that the loan scheme could be reorganised to take into account the different income levels and longer repayment periods.

Dr Wilson observes that UG graduates hold prominent positions in industry and government both within and outside Guyana and not enough effort is being made to tap into this network.

He says that his faculty is formulating plans to tap into the network of graduates of the Faculty of Technology who have expressed a willingness to assist, as a way of giving back something to the institution that laid the groundwork for their academic and professional success.

Laboratory facilities - Faculty of Natural Sciences

One of the major complaints of the science-based faculties is the lack of laboratory facilities, including up-to-date equipment and, Creighton concedes, the laboratory facilities are not to the standard the university would like them to be. He contends that initiatives to attract funding to re-equip and upgrade them are needed.

During the last academic year, students of this faculty appealed to President Bharrat Jagdeo for assistance. And at the end of the last academic year, Head of the Chemistry Department, Dr Anand Daljeet, also wrote to President Jagdeo on the issue. Current Affairs understands that President Jagdeo has promised to make funds available to assist in re-tooling the laboratories.

DaSilva concedes that the facilities "are not always up to date" and "equipment-wise we really do need re-tooling." He says too that there are not always adequate amounts of the required chemicals. As a result, the students have to work in groups or the experiments have to be done as demonstrations.

He said that the university recognises the problems and is working feverishly to address them but the costs are extremely high.

DaSilva said too that the university has introduced "lab fees" to help to provide the laboratory services. The students in the computer science department have benefited as there is now a laboratory with about 20-25 working computers at any one time, though this number is not enough. He cautions that the students must take care of the equipment.

He concedes that the university has not been as successful as it would like in the provision of the laboratory facilities of the Biology and Physics departments. "The problem is that we were so far back ...that there are decisions that have to be made as to what pieces of equipment to get first."

Another problem related to the laboratories is the storage of chemicals. Inadequate storage facilities had led to the laboratory personnel falling ill. DaSilva said that faculty now has a new chemical bond, which was built out of the faculty's budget and that proper protocols are in place for the storage and management of the chemicals.

Also, he says, the faculty works with the Environmental Protection Agency to ensure that its practices meet the environmental standards as well as accord with the requirements of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. Students are required to wear lab coats and appropriate shoes. First-year students are required to take part in the safety drills and these requirements are being rigidly enforced, he said.

Placement at private laboratories

A problem arising from the inadequate laboratory facilities is the arrangements for the conduct of research projects by the final-year students. These had to be done off-campus and this was apparently one of the complaints made to the President.

DaSilva contends that the complaints were justified, explaining that students are expected to conduct quality research with facilities, which are far from adequate. However, he points out that since the student is likely to go into industry upon graduation, the faculty saw the placing of the students at private laboratories as an opportunity to foster linkages. He explains that the placement with the private laboratories provides an opportunity for the students to work within an environment in which they may later find themselves and for industry to match its interests in research projects with those of the students.

He says that what may have happened last semester is that the instructors may have been tardy in making the arrangements for placements, as a result of not determining early enough what projects could have been done at the university.

Laboratories at which final-year students were placed to conduct their research projects included Banks DIH, the National Agricultural Research Institute, Guysuco, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

DaSilva said that the arrangements are now more structured to match the interests of the students and industry, as the faculty is now more aware of where the resources are. In addition to the private labs to which students were attached this year, he cited laboratories at the Institute of Applied Science and Technology, the New GPC and the Government Analyst Department.

Laboratory and Research Facilities - the Faculty of Agriculture

Dr Francis says the Faculty of Agriculture has the lab space but lacks equipment and materials. She says that during the next two years she hopes the university would be able to use its own resources as well as attract adequate funding from international institutions to properly equip the labs.

She says too that last year the vice-chancellor made available a ten-acre plot plus a small sum of money to purchase seeds, to establish the research arm of the faculty. She said that previously, students had to go to private farms or those owned by government institutions, which she described as highly undesirable.

With regard to research activities, Dr Francis says the university needs help and is looking to the private sector. She says the faculty is formulating a programme of research to move the poultry industry from being an assembly point to the position of being able to produce parent stock through the use of local inputs. She describes it as "introducing First World technology to reduce the country's dependence on imported inputs."

She says that the faculty has already tested, and would soon be ready to market, an incubator developed in collaboration with the Faculty of Technology, which could be powered, by propane or solar energy. The availability of incubators would allow farmers in the outlying areas to incubate their eggs on their farms, rather than bringing them to Georgetown.

Laboratory and Research Facilities - Faculty of Technology

For Dr Wilson the lack of proper laboratory facilities is critical, especially if the B.Eng degree is to be accepted both within and outside the region. He said that over the years the facilities had deteriorated and a recent pre-accreditation report from the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board indicated the poor state of the facilities and the need for improvement in staffing and for the programmes to be remodeled.

He said that the lack of proper laboratory facilities also hampers research as state-of-the-art equipment is required to conduct the cutting edge research that is required. Dr Wilson says that it has not always been like that, but over the years the laboratory facilities had become run-down and the facilities were, to some extent, obsolete. However, he says, the industrial placement, which the students must do as a course requirement, helps in the research projects they undertake.

Performance of UG students pursuing

post-graduate degrees overseas

DaSilva, the Assistant Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences, Dawn Fox and Drs Francis and Wilson rejected Kissoon's comment that because of the inadequate facilities at UG, especially in the Natural Sciences, the UG degree with distinction is of little value.

Fox is a 1997 graduate of the University of Guyana with a distinction in Chemistry. She won a Commonwealth Scholarship in 2000 for which she competed with applicants from other Caribbean territories and graduated with a Masters degree in Engineering from Auckland University, ahead of schedule last year.

Another graduate, Malcolm Williams, who topped his graduating class is currently completing a Masters degree in Computer Science.

DaSilva also cited the example of another student who gained a graduate assistant post to study for a Masters degree, but has been awarded a full scholarship to complete her Doctorate at the Univer-sity of Alberta, Canada.

He observes that students who graduate with distinction and credit from UG have no difficulty in finding positions as graduate assistants with universities outside Guyana.

Fox's comment, which DaSilva supports, is that because of the lack of facilities the "UG graduates are more resourceful, innovative and more accustomed to solving problems that work to their advantage when they attend the better equipped institutions."

Dr Francis feels that students who apply themselves at UG usually can perform as well as the students from other universities. Speaking from her own experience, she says that the UG students have a very good theoretical grounding but lack of facilities affect their ability to observe the application of the theory in practice. However, she says that once exposed to the facilities they tend to do well.

As a further illustration of her point she said that a Dr Nehri, who graduated from the UG Medical School topped the field when she wrote the qualifying examination to practice in the United States.

Dr Wilson notes that UG engineering graduates hold top positions in the engineering industry in Guyana, the Caribbean and further afield. Also, he points out that those who have pursued higher degrees had excelled in institutions in the United Kingdom, including Cambridge University and some of them were also top professors in their fields at universities in North America.

"Many of our students have gone on to attend the top universities around the world and have obtained Masters and PhD degrees and this is without any additional topping up. In other words it is a testimony to the quality of our programmes over the years that our students have been able to go on and do postgraduate work and excel at the top universities in the world."

Electricity

Another infrastructural problem plaguing the Turkeyen campus is the supply of electricity. DaSilva explains that the campus, like the rest of the country is plagued by an erratic supply of electricity, which damages equipment and frustrates students.

He said that the problem came to a head during the last academic year and the university's electrical department had contracted Cummings' Electrical to determine the problem and rectify it. He said that while the problem of the unstable supply has been addressed, there are still the constant blackouts. He said that though the campus has a generator to which the faculty is hooked, it is overtaxed. UG would welcome the donation of another one.

Staffing - Faculty of Natural Sciences

Creighton concedes that staff levels and quality are lower than desired and blames this on the level of remuneration, which he says is not attractive enough to recruit and retain quality staff in sufficient numbers. However, he points out, "It is easy to forget that there are still many good quality lecturers at UG, who provide training of international quality. They 'stick it out' and actually subsidise tertiary education in Guyana by 'sticking it out' and working with low wage levels and resources."

With regard to Kissoon's comments about the number of UG graduates teaching at the university, DaSilva described his faculty as being completely "internationalised", with some of the lecturers being UG graduates with first degrees who went on to do graduate studies at other universities. "The mix is about just what the [faculty's] budget would allow."

He explained that the Biology Department had just recruited two lecturers from India who are holders of PhDs and another is expected for the Mathematics Department. He said too that the university is negotiating with a lecturer in Biotechnology, who resides in Paris, who has expressed an interest in coming to UG. She should be here in January if she finds the salary acceptable.

But Dow observes that unless there is some improvement in the salary levels, UG would be unable to attract and retain the bright young people and all it would be doing is training people for export.

Staffing - Faculty of Agriculture

Dr Francis said that where the Faculty of Agriculture once had nine PhDs, it is now down to two - one of whom is herself. As a consequence, she said, there is a heavy reliance on part-time staff, who would not have the same level of commitment to the development of the faculty and its programmes, and on the links with NARI and the International Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture, to keep the programme going and developing.

Dr Francis explained that while there has been a lot of staff development through Commonwealth and Fulbright scholarships, the faculty has been unable to retain most of the lecturers that were trained.

She says that she hopes the university would find it possible to increase the remuneration of the lecturers to assist in attracting and retaining quality staff.

Ganesh Ramcharran, who heads the Forestry Department, attributes the rapid development of his department to the assistance being provided by the United Kingdom's Department For International Development, for the purchase of equipment.

He says too that the Guyana Forestry Commission provides off-campus training and is always supportive of student projects.

The Faculty aims to develop the Department as an International Centre for Forestry whose facilities it hopes the CARICOM member countries would utilise and which would attract experts to assist in developing its capacity.

Ramcharran, who sits on the Advisory Board of Trinidad and Tobago's Forestry School, says that the Department has also benefited from funding from the Caribbean Programme for Economic Competitiveness to allow it to conduct experiments in wood- drying using solar kilns, the results of which would be used to produce schedules that would be made available to the industry.

Staffing - the Faculty of Technology

Dr Wilson says that his faculty has been unable to attract and retain quality staff and he too blames this on the level of remuneration at UG.

He explains that a graduate of the faculty, on leaving UG, can earn twice the salary of the lecturer who had taught him/her, while he/she was reading for his/her degree.

He explains that some lecturers are engaged in consultancies, which does not always benefit the faculty as their involvement could detract from the delivery of their courses.

Another constraint, he said, was that he could not promise them a scholarship at the end of two years or so to pursue post-graduate degrees. He said while a lot of staff had benefited from staff development programmes, the majority had left after serving the contracted period required after being sent abroad for training.

Dr Wilson says that besides himself, there are no other PhDs in his faculty, but in the past there were no less than six in the Department of Civil Engineering alone. At the moment his staff includes some lecturers with Masters degrees.

He explains that there are no longer the number of scholarships available from international associations and those that are available are competitive. As an example he cites the scholarships offered by the Association of Commonwealth Universities for which the staff at UG had to compete with staff from other universities in the Commonwealth.

Staff Development

Both Drs Francis and Wilson said that with regard to the process for nominating UG staff for scholarships, the applications are circulated to the various departments in the faculties, which would then meet to determine their nominee from among the candidates put forward by the departments. The faculty would put forward that nominee for consideration by the university's scholarship committee. The deputy vice-chancellor chairs the scholarship committee and it considers the nominations from the various faculties in determining the candidate(s) it recommends for the award(s).

Dr Wilson, like Creighton, believes that there would have to be a lot of collusion at the various levels to result in the candidacy of persons who do not satisfy the criteria for nomination by the university, going forward, as Kissoon alleges has been the case with the vice-chancellor's son.

Availability of textbooks

Creighton, DaSilva and Dr Wilson pinpoint the problems posed by the inadequacy of required text and journals. Creighton observes that there are shortages in some areas but that in other areas there are the required journals, though not enough to satisfy the demand.

He says that there is a need for capital input to re-stock the library, because although people make donations, they are not necessarily what the library needs.

Dr Wilson says that because the library's "holdings" in engineering are small, not enough of the major textbooks are available and this affects the delivery of the faculty's programmes.

One consequence of the unavailability of the required texts from the library is that students rely overwhelmingly on handouts from their lecturers. He says too that the students also use the Internet to access the information they require.

He says that it is not a problem unique to his faculty, but one that is faced by the university as a whole.

Dr Wilson says that if a student does not have access to textbooks their knowledge is limited, their focus is limited even in their own subject areas and opportunities to do examples and widen their knowledge base are not there. "It means you are relying on what your lecturers provide and that is not what is required when you are reading for a degree."

DaSilva sees the need for improvement in the availability of chemical abstracts and journals as well the "holdings" of texts on computer science, which he describes as "not what it should be". Also, he says that in the area of biology, there is a paucity of research material on Guyana, as well as basic information on Guyana in the area of chemistry.

The faculty is encouraging its staff to publish more of their research in peer-review journals. He notes that the students do purchase textbooks but that the prices of these books are very high. However, students have access to the mini-libraries of the faculty as well as free "online subscriptions" to which the faculty has access and their relevance to the courses being offered is being assessed. "I think we need more improvement because that is where the technology is these days."

DaSilva notes too that the students also have access to the collections of some of the lecturers from whom they borrow books to copy the relevant chapters.

His concern is the students' access to journals and abstracts, as he says research "comes out every day" and "we don't have regular access to them".

Research Activities of UG Staff

Commenting on the availability of funds for research, of which Kissoon complains there is none, Creighton admits that it is not a staggering sum but emphasises that it exists and many members of staff have had research grants from it. He explained that there is a central research fund as well as smaller funds managed by the various faculties. He admits too that there is need for a much larger fund, even though during the tenure of Prof Harold Lutchman as vice-chancellor, it was boosted by $3 million. He says that people have got grants not only from the university but also from international institutions.

Creighton observes that a priority for the university is to get more of the academic staff engaged in serious research, and it has set this as one of the conditions for the renewal of contracts. He said that if when their contracts come up for renewal, the lecturers have not engaged in any research, their contracts are not renewed or they are offered reduced contracts.

Dr Wilson, while agreeing that there is an allocation in the university's budget for research, says the amount is "a token that cannot go a long way". But he says that the staff can tap external sources and access fellowships granted by the Association of Commonwealth Universities.

DaSilva also notes that the faculty holds seminars, started some four years ago, at which lecturers present research papers. Their findings are discussed and the papers further refined before presentation to an international audience.

Contribution to National Development

About the contribution of the university to national development, Creighton points out that UG graduates can be found in every sector of the society. The judiciary as well as the magistracy is solidly supported by persons trained at UG as are the chambers of the Attorney General and the Director of Public Prosecutions and private legal firms. He notes that Chief Justice Carl Singh was a UG graduate. He notes too that the Magistracy is staffed by UG graduates.

The deputy vice-chancellor points out too, that the university has trained an adequate number of teachers for the various levels of the education system but that a significant number has been lost through migration. He said that UG has been turning out trained classroom teachers, trained education managers in terms of education planning and management, and teachers with the B.Ed to staff the secondary schools.

He says too that the university is now training personnel for the "upcoming and expanding tourism sector" through the programme it has mounted in the tourism studies unit.

Creighton also addressed the controversial issue of the rapid expansion of the programmes of the Faculty of Social Sciences, the largest faculty on the campus. "One reason why the Faculty of Social Sciences has grown so rapidly is that the faculty has been meeting the market demands. Students have been doing programmes in Social Sciences because they believe the market seems to be demanding those skills."

However, he says that there is a feeling that Guyana does not need more social scientists and that it needs more technologists and natural scientists and that UG should train more people in these areas. "That is true. When you look at the people trained in the natural sciences it doesn't compare to those trained in the social sciences," but he says various schemes have to be implemented to address the problem.

Attracting Students to the Sciences at UG

The Faculty of Natural Sciences is one of the smallest, with an annual student intake a year of about 850. Last year it was 853.

The faculty offers first-degree programmes in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Statistics, Computer Science and Environmental Science. The dean of the faculty also has administrative responsibility for the Centre for the Study of Biological Diversity. The centre is recognised by BIONET International as a Centre of Excellence in Biosystematics in the Caribbean.

The Environmental Studies Unit has developed working relationships with PAHO/WHO, the Environmental Protection Agency and Conservation International.

Both DaSilva and Dr Wilson addressed the need for attracting more students to their faculties. DaSilva explained that most of the high school graduates are reluctant to enter the field because they believe that they are weak in mathematics.

However, he said, seven students who are graduating with degrees in Physics with distinctions this year, were persuaded to read for the degree by one of the lecturers in the faculty who had taught them in high school. So, he feels that a more aggressive recruitment drive needs to be mounted to encourage high school graduates to read for science degrees.

Another inhibiting factor, according to DaSilva, is the opportunities for further study, which he said are few and the courses costly.

He explained that the graduates of the faculty's programmes gravitate mainly into teaching, as the "immediate application" of their area of study to their working life does not readily make them employable.

For example, he says if a chemistry graduate wants to be employed by Banks DIH, he might need to develop skills in microbiology. However, he says that if given the opportunity they can soon acquire them.

DaSilva said that a number of them also join the UG Medical School where they also perform well.

Dr Wilson says that his faculty gets a fair amount of students with good CXC grades but not enough of the top CXC and A-level performers, and he expressed concern about the quality of some of the students applying to enter the faculty, who barely satisfy the entrance requirements. He says that as a result there is a high failure rate in courses such as chemistry, physics, engineering and mathematics. As a consequence, Dr Wilson says, the faculty is considering the introduction of a Foundation Year from which the better-qualified students would be exempt.

He said that the re-introduction of the open entrance examination as recommended by the Social Science Faculty, which wants to limit its intake, would not work for the other faculties, as it would further reduce the size of their intake.

Dr Wilson, commenting on the suggestion of scholarships being offered to attract the brighter students said that the university did not have the resources to sustain such a programme and would not for a very long time, as the funding was just not there.

Commenting on the problems of attracting students to read for degrees in Agricultural Science, Dr Francis stresses the need to increase the size of the student intake to her faculty which, this year, numbers about 130. She, herself, abandoned her ambitions to be a lawyer to study agricultural Science when she got her first glimpse of rice plants waving in the wind while on a visit to Essequibo. She says she has not regretted the move.

Dr Francis emphasises that students have to learn about the opportunities available to them on graduation in the various fields, pointing out that the future is in agri-services, and as such the students would need to be taught micro-propagation techniques to produce large number of tissue cultures so that on graduation they would have a "competitive edge".

She stresses that they would also have to be taught entrepreneurial skills such as project planning and money management.

Dr Francis holds the view that students should be encouraged to be the engines of growth in agricultural Science since it will be those with the degrees and diplomas, entrepreneurial skills and access to start-up capital, who will make the greatest progress in the industry.

Towards this end, she says that among other programmes, the Faculty intends to offer programmes in Crop Science and Soil Science as well as either a degree or diploma course in Agri-Business.


Status of Implementation of the Decisions of the Constructive Engagement


If ever it was needed, the exchange of letters between Prime Minister, Sam Hinds, and the Leader of the Opposition, Robert Corbin, now provides irrefutable proof of the need for a mechanism which can independently evaluate the progress being made in the implementation of the decisions of the constructive engagement process.

Both the Government and the Leader of the Opposition offer vastly different assessments of what is being done to put in place the Service Commissions, the procurement legislation, the draft broadcast legislation, the projects identified in Region Six, by the Committee on Depressed Communities to be implemented on an emergency basis and the appointment of the state media boards.

The truth lies somewhere between the two explanations the public is being asked to accept. About the Region 6 projects it is depressing to learn that though the September 15 statement said that were identified, the co-chair of the Committee on Depressed Communities, who is the government's nominee, said that she had not been informed. Last month Current Affairs reported that the Region Six regional administration did not know of the projects.

The Social Partners, during its initiative to kick-start a resumption of the Jagdeo-Hoyte dialogue process, proposed the establishment of a mechanism that would oversee the implementation of the decisions. It's chairman, Dr Peter de Groot, in a speech to the diplomatic community at a luncheon in September, advocated that the stakeholders' briefing group should set up a mechanism to provide it with an assessment independent of that given it by the representatives of President Jagdeo and Corbin. It would seem too that there is need for an independent mechanism to record their decisions since the exchange of letters suggest that there is less than a common understanding of what has been decided when their meetings are adjourned.

For whatever reasons, the situation is that the meeting, which should have been convened two weeks after September 15, between the two leaders is yet to scheduled. Also, more than one hundred days after their May 6, communiqué not much progress has been made beyond the implementation of the parliamentary reforms.

The reforms put in place are the parliamentary sector committees which include the establishment of the parliamentary management committee, the parliamentary sector committees on natural resources, economic services, social services, and foreign affairs, as well as the Appointive Committee and the Committee on Constitutional Reform, all of which have begun to work.

There has also been some progress in the strengthening of the capacity of Parliament Office to the serve the National Assembly and its various committees. However, the delay in the relocating of the Public Utilities Commission has set back the work to provide more and better accommodations for parliamentarians and the Parliament Office staff.

In its continuing effort to provide its readers with an up to date account of the stage of implementation of the various decisions, Current Affairs has been tracking their implementation based on information gleaned from its own inquiries, and the joint statements issued after the meetings of the President and the Leader of the Opposition. Below is the state of implementation based on information available November 15, 2003.

1.Parliamentary And Constitutional Reform:

1.1 Strengthening the Capacity of the Parliament Office.

The President and the Leader of the Opposition agreed that:

* Increased budgetary resources would be required in a timely manner, in 2003, to meet the operational and other needs of the National Assembly and ensure its smooth functioning.

* As a matter of priority, the Parliamentary Manage-ment Committee will undertake the ongoing review of the capacity of the Parliament Office to discharge its functional responsibilities to the National Assembly

1.2.1 Increasing the Administrative Capacity of the Parliament Office:

Some of the additional staff required has been recruited but the delay in the removal of the Public Utilities Commission from the eastern wing of the bottom flat of the Public Building has prevented the full complement from being recruited.

1.2.2. The Provision of Research and Documentation Support for the Work of the Committees:

IT Requirements:

Work has started on determining the equipment and other needs for the Parliament Office.

Documentation and Information Services:

The Needs Assessment Consultant will identify the technical needs for the establishment of modern Documentation and Information services.

Documentation and Information Staff:

Recruitment has been initiated.

Professional Research Staff:

The staff is yet to be recruited.

1.2.3. Remuneration for MPs and Administrative and Logistical Support for

Regional MPs:

The Leader of the Opposition requested that the likely impact of the proposals made should be examined before a final decision could be made on a suitable package. They are yet to make a decision on this issue.

1.2.4.Physical Facilities Within the Public Building:

The President and the Leader of the Opposition agreed on the need to enhance the physical facilities at the Public Building to support the work of the Committees and the National Assembly as a whole.

The Parliamentary Management Committee has agreed plans for the physical modification/renovation of the Public Building for submission to the Office of the President.

The PUC removed from the Public Buildings at the end of October, three months after it should have done so. Work is to start on the modification of the building for the needs of the staff and Committees of the National Assembly and on the installation of Information Technology and Communication (ITC) capacity. This installation should have been completed by the end of the Recess.

1.3. The Appointment of the Constitutional Commissions:

1.3.1. Establishment of the Ethnic Relations Commission:

The Indigenous People's Commission, the Women and Gender Equality Commission, the Commission for the Rights of the Child and the Human Rights Commission are still to be established. As a result, nominees to sit on the Ethnic Relations Commission have not been appointed.

However, the Commission continues to meet without the appointed members and has completed drafting its work programme and budget.

These four members are not entitled to vote on matters before the Commission. The Chairman and Deputy Chairman are respectively, Bishop Juan Edghill and Norman Mc Lean.

The Bidco building at the corner of Peter Rose and Anira Streets has been earmarked for the location of the Commission. The Office of the President is to expedite the early repairs/ modification of the building.

Other action that remain to be taken for the full operationalisation of The Commission are:

The early appointment of:

(a) The Tribunal for the Ethnic Relations Commis-sion, and

(b) The Chief Executive Officer and staff of the Secretariat for the Commission. The Parliament Office is presently providing the secretarial services for the Commission.

1.3.2.The Appointment of the Public Procurement Commission:

There has been no movement in breaking deadlock at the level of the Public Accounts Committee on this issue. The sticking point is the criteria to be used to evaluate the candidacy of the ten nominees submitted by the PPP/C and the PNC/R. Each party submitted the names and Curricula Vitae of five persons to the PAC for it to evaluate and select five suitably qualified persons to recommend to the National Assembly for appointment by the President.

The Constitution requires the persons to be appointed to have "expertise and experience in procurement, legal, financial and administrative matters."

Other actions required for the implementation of this decision are the Appointment of a Chief Execu-tive Officer and staff for the Secretariat of the Com-mission.

1.3.3. Appointment of the Chairperson for the Human Rights Commission:

The Leader of the Opposition has begun the consultations to prepare a list of six eligible persons not unacceptable to the President from which to appoint the chairman for this Commission.

The Constitution requires the person to be appointed as chairman of this Commission to be a person who has been a judge of a court of unlimited jurisdiction or is qualified to be appointed a judge of such a court or any other fit person with expertise or experience in human rights matters

1.3.4 The Appointment of the Commissions for Women and Gender Equity, Indigenous Peoples and the Rights of the Child:

The Appointive Committee has already begun implementing the constitutionally mandated consultative process for the appointment of the members of these

Commissions.

1.3.5 Appointment of the Members of the Constitutional Service Commissions:

The Appointive Committee by a majority decision has agreed on the names of the persons it will recommend that the National Assembly nominate for appointment to the Public Service Commission. Once the National Assembly informs the President of its nominees, the way would be cleared for the establishment of the Public Service Commission, the chairman of which sits on the Judicial Service Commission and the Police Service Commission, for which the National Assembly has already informed the President of its nominees.

One issue that has to resolved is whether or not the President and Corbin will agree that their parties would return to the National Assembly to correct the drafting error made in the legislation that amended article 210(1)(d). Another, which Current Affairs understand is dependent on the decision reached on the first issue, is whether the legislation to amend articles 207(2)C)and 210(1)(d)to provide for the Leader of the Opposition to name one of the three members to be appointed by the President to the Teaching Service Commission and the Police Service Commission.

With regard to Teaching Service Commission, Current Affairs understands that the Minister of Local Government has completed the necessary consultations and those by the President have not been completed.

1.3.6. Remuneration of members of the Constitutional Commissions:

It was agreed that the levels of remuneration for Commissioners for the Constitutional Rights Commissions including the Ethnic Relations Commission would be similar to those for members of the Constitutional Service Commissions. The pay of the Chairman of the Public Service Commission at December 31, 2001 was $136 889 a month, telephone allowance $50 per month and a travelling allowance of $9,500 a month. The Deputy Chairman was paid $68,500 a month, telephone allowance of $50 and a travelling allowance of $6,336 a month. The other members of the Commission were paid a stipend of $38,500 a month plus a telephone allowance of $50 a month and a travelling allowance of $6,336 a month.

No decision has been taken as yet.

1.3.7.The Public Procurement Act 2003:

The teams appointed by the President and the Leader of the Opposition are meeting. They have sought legal opinion on some ambiguities in the legislation.

2. Implementation of the Decisions of the Bipartisan Committees:

2.1.National Policy on Land and House lots Distribution:

The PNCR has not yet submitted its assessment of the State Paper the Minister of Housing and Water laid in the National Assembly.

2.2.Local Government Reform:

The Joint Committee resumed its work on September 22. Current Affairs Understands that it has reached broad understandings on the Electoral and Fiscal Allocation systems it will recommend. However, there are some details of the two systems that are being referred to President Jagdeo and Corbin for their decision.

The legal draftsman whose services are being made available through funding from the National Democratic Institute, has begun the task translating the committee's recommendations into legislative form.

2.3 Depressed Communities Needs:

The President and the Leader of the Opposition have agreed the projects to be implemented in Regions 6 and 10.

Region 10.

The identified projects in Region 10 have begun but there is dissatisfaction with some of the work being done. The Regional Chairman is addressing the concerns about the quality of the work. There is also some concern about the rate at which the funds allocated for the projects are being made available.

Region 6

The Regional Administration for Region 6 is yet to be informed of the projects identified for implementation. Philomena Sahoye-Shury, one of the Co-chairs of the Committee has told Current Affairs that she is yet to be informed of the identified projects.

2.4 Radio Monopoly and Non Partisan Boards:

*The consultations have begun to ensure that the State Media Boards are reconstituted in accordance with the recommendation of the Joint Broadcast Committee. The recommendation requires the boards of GTV, GBC and the Guyana National Newspapers Limited to each comprise one Representative each from the Consumers' Association, the University of Guyana and the workers of the particular entity; no less than three but no more than four members nominated by the President; no less than two but no more then three members nominated by the Leader of the Opposition after consulting with the other opposition parliamentary parties. The General Managers of the three entities will each be an ex officio member of the board for their organisation.

*The representatives of the President and the Leader of the Opposition are still discussing this issue of the PNCR's concerns about the draft bill.

*The representatives of the President and the Leader of the Opposition are still discussing their proposals for giving effect to the commitment for Equitable Access by Political Parties (as distinct from Govern-ment) to the State Media.

2.5 Border and National Security Issues including the Recapitalisation of the GDF:

The Minister of Foreign Affairs tabled an edited version of the Joint Committee's Report in the National Assembly, on July 5, 2003. The President and the Leader of the Opposition have agreed that the Government will implement the recommendations accepted by the National Assembly and the Foreign Relations Sector Committee would monitor Government's implementation.

2.6 Establishment of the Committee to Prepare a Comprehensive Development Programme for Region #10:

The final Report of the Government's projects and programmes being executed in Region 10 was submitted.

The President and the Leader of the Opposition have established a Joint Team to examine the document to determine whether it represents a comprehensive Development Programme for Region 10. There has been no movement on the issue.

3.Appointment of PPP/C and PNCR Nominees to State Boards, Commissions and Committees:

It was agreed that the PPP/C and the PNCR would have representatives on 152 Boards, Committees and Commissions including the ten regional land selection committees, the 32 local Boards of Guardians, the National Drainage and Irrigation Boards and the various regional D&I committees. These appointments are being made

4.Appointment of the Disciplined Forces Commission:

The Disciplined Forces Commission is holding public hearings which began on August 18, 2003. It was required to submit an interim report on the operations of the Guyana Police Force within three months of the commencement of its work.

5.Agreements for the Electricity Sector:

The Prime Minister will verify whether the agreements were all tabled in the National Assembly.

6. Establishment of Office of the Leader of the Opposition:

The modalities for the establishment of the Office of the Leader of the Opposition have been determined.

7. Dissolution of the Linden Town Council and Appointment of an Interim Management Committee:

The Linden Town Council has been dissolved in accordance with the Municipal and District Councils Act following the report of the enquiry set up by the Minister. Work has begun on the appointment of an Interim Management Committee.

8.Meeting to Discuss Outstanding Agenda Items:

The President and the Leader of the Opposition have yet to be meet as they agreed they would in their statement issued after the September 15 meeting.

The matters they agreed to consider are the De-Politicisation of the Public Service, Legislation on Crossing the Floor, Legislation establishing a Permanent Elections Commission and the PPP/C's Paper on "Inclusive Governance".


Editorial
The dialogue should be structured


The exchange of letters at the weekend between the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister, on behalf of the President, is a stark reminder that the country is no closer to political stability than it was a year ago.

What is particularly disturbing is that the public is once again being made to take a ring side seat as the two sides wrangle about what progress is being made in implementing decisions reported in the May 6 'Joint Communiqué'.

For two parties which claim to represent more than 95 per cent of us they seem blissfully oblivious of the fact that the constructive engagement in which we have invested so much hope has failed, as Moses Nagamootoo says elsewhere in this issue, to bring any discernible improvement to our lives.

Both the President and the Leader of the Opposition cannot be unaware how dangerously close we are to a descent into anarchy and that we have no appetite for the sort of one-up-manship which the exchange seems to indicate is at play. It is difficult to accept that persons as experienced and intellectually capable as their high representatives, can discuss an issue and at the end of it do not have a common understanding of what decisions they took.

Also, it is difficult to accept that the communication is so bad between the Office of the President, and members of the Cabinet and the regional administrations that six weeks after a decision is taken the details of it are still unknown. It reminds us of the debacle in the implementation of the electrification scheme at De Kinderen when it took six months before the Housing Minister indicated that a regularisation exercise had to be carried out before the project could go ahead. The electrification scheme was one of the four projects that the President and the then Leader of the Opposition decided should be implemented on an emergency basis in communities they identified as depressed.

It is clear that, as Dr Peter de Groot advocates, there is need for a mechanism to independently assess what progress is being made in the implementation of decisions that are taken. Current Affairs would even go further and argue that the representatives of the two leaders should meet under the chairmanship of a third party so as to avoid the delays that have been happening when they meet alone.

We welcome the constructive engagement which everyone, save those who have a vested interest in continuing instability, saw as a promising start to a regime of cooperation between the two parties and a building of trust between them. Such cooperation is needed to ensure the ushering in of a period of political stability, which is an essential requirement for attracting investment, local and foreign, which we sorely need.

More importantly, such cooperation will facilitate the creation of an environment which would allow all the government to tap all the available talent in and outside the country as it grapples with the challenges facing the nation and prepare for those that come in the wake of the globalisation process.

Late though the hour may be the President and the Leader of the Opposition must stamp their authority on this engagement process and invest in it their commitment and that of their parties to putting the interest of the nation first and particularly the poor and powerless they claim to represent.


PNC/R ready to discuss power sharing
But PPP says trust must be established first
(Ross Robertson talks to some senior politicians on a vexed political issue)

'One People, One Nation, One Destiny' could be seen as being a cruel irony on the coat of arms of a country where development and progress are blocked by ethnic tensions. The people and the politicians are in agreement that it is time for serious change if the country is to improve, and the quest for a workable solution to Guyana's problems is on. The government and opposition parties all recognise that there is a need for adjusted governance to tackle the long-standing issue of ethnic rivalry and insecurity.

Executive power sharing, where both sides share power in a multi-party government, is one solution that has presented itself, and the People's National Congress Reform (PNC/R) circulated in Sep-tember a document outlining proposals for shared governance. The PPP has also published proposals of its own and the debate is now on as to whether executive power sharing is workable, and more importantly, if it can actually solve the deeply embedded social and political divisions that exist in Guyana.

"Once the politicians are in, they just care about themselves. They forget about the roads and the housing and the electricity. They forget about the masses that elected them," claims a night security guard in downtown Georgetown. Every story has at least two sides. With Guyana, it seems, it is felt that the two sides of the story are the side of the politicians and the side of the people, and there is little connection between the two. We took a walk around Georgetown to see how the people felt about power-sharing and what the politicians were up against in their struggle to heal Guyana's wounds.

Power-sharing is an area fraught with contention, and there are many considerations to be taken into account when looking at the notion of shared governance. We spoke to representatives from four of Guyana's political parties to gain their views on the issues surrounding shared governance and the possibilities of its success.

Power-sharing has been attempted in a number of other countries across the globe, though not always with great success. The power-sharing government in Fiji resulted in a coup, and the power-sharing agreement in Northern Ireland collapsed some time after its formation. Nevertheless, those in favor of power-sharing in Guyana refute that we should look to these negative examples as a warning against executive power sharing here. "There are nations where power- sharing has worked and I believe it is urgently needed here" argues James McAllister, citing Malaysia as a success story. McAllister chaired the PNC/R committee which devised the proposal for shared governance. "What we have now is not working and the idea that we shouldn't do something because it might not work is ludicrous... We can only move forward if we try something else. And we think that should be shared governance."

However, Robert Persaud of the PPP/C disagrees with the notion that just because the system in Guyana is not working any suggestion is viable. "We do not accept the connection between a so-called turmoil and trying anything as a solution. In fact, there is a need for extraordinary caution in responding to any situation of turmoil. Any responsible movement will seek to ensure that any proposal or solution does not worsen the situation. As such, options being proposed must be critically analysed. The same is the case with executive power sharing."

Persaud and the PPP/C feel that it is not necessary to go as far as power-sharing, and that there are other moves that can be made towards more inclusive governance. "Given the ethnic mix of our population where there are two significant race groups, East Indians and Africans, the search for models of governance must, of necessity, be ongoing. The PPP/C has publicly stated that even though it has the ability to win elections on its own, it has a preference for inclusive governance and participatory democracy, which in effect meant broadening the base of governance structures to include the broadest cross-section of the people in Guyana."

The PPP/C's policy position released in February, 'Towards Greater Inclusive Governance in Guyana,' was written in response to the PNC/R proposals, and pointed to a number of measures already in place which leaned towards more inclusive governance. These include the establishment of a number of bi-partisan committees and the furnishing of the PNC/R with positions on over 50 state boards and committees. The document also stipulates a strong wish to expand on inclusive governance initiatives in the future.

But McAllister doesn't feel that other measures of inclusive governance can be substituted. "Guyana doesn't need cosmetic surgery; it needs radical intrusive surgery to address the public need. We need to make fundamental changes, there's no sense in tinkering here and tinkering there. The changes must be fundamental and the faster we do this, the faster we can move on."

Other parties seem to concur that greater steps need to be taken sooner if Guyana is to move on. 'I quote the [19th century] British prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, who said that you cannot cross a chasm by taking many small leaps, you must take one big leap.' And I think that is what is needed, is the sentiment of ROAR leader, Ravi Dev who is in favor of power sharing at a national level, as a component of his ideas of reforming Guyana's political situation, which has an emphasis on the decentralisation of power and the federalisation of the country.

Sheila Holder of the GAP/WPA is equally critical of what she believes to be inadequate methods of inclusive governance and also stresses that it is only the PNC/R that is given a seat on the state boards, leaving out minority parties and other interest groups. "The more they talk of inclusiveness, the more they exclude, even if the exclusion is of the minor parties." She also feels that action must be taken sooner, "Contrary to the belief that the reform effort has to be gradual, it has to be speeded up. Society is teetering on the brink. We don't have time to take years to get to the level of reform that's required."

"The average man doesn't have time to read the newspapers and think about what's happening. He's too busy trying to work out how he can divide up all his money to feed his family. He just votes depending on the color of his skin cos he ain't got time to think," another opinion from one of Georgetown's Saturday night philosophers.

One of the general criticisms of executive power sharing is the possibility of gridlock, the situation that arises when two dominant parties in a coalition cannot agree on an issue and the matter remains unresolved with neither side wishing to give in. In Guyana, this is a particularly prominent fear, many feeling that the lack of trust and 'bad blood' that exists between the two major parties is the problem now, and will simply continue into a power-sharing agreement, resulting in grave consequences for the nation. The PPP/C express their concerns on this matter, alongside other criticisms of shared governance, in their policy position. "No contrived system of governance will succeed in a situation where trust and good faith do not exist between the political parties."

In response, McAllister again brings up the fact that the current system doesn't work, so there is no sense in nullifying a suggestion on the grounds that what is being proposed might not work. "If you go out and you look around Guyana, read about Guyana and see its potential, and see where we are, you will see that what we have had for the last 50 years is gridlock. Our suggestion is geared towards the removal of gridlock from the system. And we're not talking about cosmetic gridlock; gridlock where two men can't agree on an issue, we're talking about gridlock of such social magnitude that the country is not going anywhere, and has no possibility of going anywhere unless we solve the gridlock we are in right now. We are in a political gridlock that is working to the detriment of the people."

He disagrees that the inter-party distrust would result in gridlock in a situation of shared governance and argues that the parties are capable of working together when it is mandatory. "When the rule is dictated that we work together, then we work together. In the constitutional reform process the parties worked together and achieved fundamental changes. They agreed, agreed to disagree, they compromised and made a number of agreements. And there are many more examples of the parties working together."

"I don't know that the distrust will disappear over-night, but what I do know is that in any situation of people working together, and becoming more knowledgeable of each other, that people become more trustful."

The PNC/R proposal does accept the possibility of what it refers to as 'agree-to-disagree' situations, and that they must be effectively managed, even though these situations "hopefully would be rare." McAllister explains the mechanisms which are designed to prevent gridlock, and how gridlock can be overcome. "Ministerial working groups, formal sections, clusters of ministers, who will be meeting on a multi-party level, can bounce ideas around until they come up with a position. This means there's already a measure of cross-party ownership of the particular initiative, meaning it should have a softer ride through the government processes. If there is a problem, then we propose a vote in parliament."

Ravi Dev concurs that the parties are capable of working together, and believes there are no fundamental differences between them. "I don't think the two parties are so different. The issue is not the how, it's the who." Dev believes that if all parties and their supporters can see their views being represented in government then this will build trust and move away from the what he refers to as the current 'Mexican stand off'.

It's Sunday afternoon outside the Stabroek News offices on Robb Street. A group of Afro-Guyanese kids walk down the street, a little behind an Indo-Guyanese boy. They light a firework and throw it at his feet, exploding a few seconds later, just sufficient time for him to walk a couple of oblivious steps away.

Another argument against executive power-sharing is that it is anti-democratic. Having the two major parties in coalition effectively eliminates the opposition, leaving the government with little in the way of an opposing voice. This is a fairly substantial worry in Guyana, with minority parties receiving such little support at elections. Opposition would be minimal should the two major parties be in a position of shared governance.

The PPP/C voiced concern over the removal of the opposition in its response to the PNC/R proposals as one of the reasons why it felt a system of executive power-sharing was undesirable.

McAllister's views are in contrast to this, and he feels that effective opposition is MPs standing up in parliament and voicing the concerns of their constituents, not the current stand off. "What we have now is confrontation, and that leads to no change."

The PNC/R proposal contains a section concerned with the "redefinition of opposition politics" which lays out ideas to make the government more accountable to the people, including freedom-of-information legislation, a non-executive president with powers to commission inquiries and stronger government watchdogs.

Sheila Holder agrees there is need for greater government accountability. "We need measures that force the government to be accountable, to make it transparent. But there is an absence of the checks and balances to make it happen."

Holder, although a supporter of the concept of power- sharing, expresses concern over what she refers to as "these two political gladiators operating together in a unified government." She sees power-sharing as an expansion of the proportional representation system, wishing for the result at the polls to be better reflected in parliament, which, she feels, would better represent minority groups, expressing her concerns that the two major ethnic groups dominate the politics in Guyana.

All the same, she does agree that the current situation does not represent an effective system of opposition. "How effective is the opposition right now? Walking out of parliament, staying out of parliament. The whole purpose of the opposition is to assert the needs of their constituency and supporters. Such opportunities do not exist in the current parliamentary system that we have, that forces the opposition to take extra- parliamentary action by going in the streets to allow its voice to be heard, to force the government to respond to the needs of their arguments. We need to try something at this stage because what we have now is not working." When asked if she thought power-sharing was an anti-democratic system of governance, she responded by arguing that it was not democratic for a party with 52% of the vote to have 100% of control of the decision-making process.

"I think power sharing would work. Now, if the PPP are in power, it's 'they do this wrong, they do this wrong and they do this wrong'. If the PNC are in, it's 'they do this wrong, they do this wrong and they do this wrong'. If they were in power together, the people only have one person to blame and they might start voting on what the politicians are doing instead of what race they are."

Ravi Dev's views are also not in concurrence with the idea of power-sharing going against the principles of democracy. "Democracy has two meanings. The first one, the procedural one, is the election. But the second basis is that the people should be involved in the decision-making process. And that's what we want to see, we have to have all Guyanese feel 'we have a share of how this country is governed'. So I feel [power-sharing] is democratic."

But will executive power-sharing actually help to improve the situation in Guyana? Will it ease ethnic tension? Will it begin to dissolve the deep-rooted insecurities between the two dominant groups in Guyana? The PPP/C takes the line of power-sharing's general criticism that shared governance is a move to the "institutionalism of ethnic rivalry". This fear is concerned with the problem that forming a system of executive power sharing recognises that ethnic tensions are insurmountable and hardens ethnic tensions, with government becoming essentially a body comprised of tribal leaders.

The PPP/C currently disagrees that power-sharing is necessary and Robert Persaud argues against the position that ethnic voting patterns mean that the PPP/C are destined to be re-elected indefinitely on population percentages alone. "The notion of ethnic voting patterns is stereotyping the issue. The PPP and the PPP/Civic support from all regions across ethnicity is unparalleled in Guyana's context. While it is true that there is a correlation between ethnicity and voting behavior, it is equally true that our party has been able to get multi-racial support, including a significant segment of Afro-Guyanese, as the results of the previous two elections so eloquently demonstrated."

"There's more Indians here than Africans and the PPP are gonna be elected forever and ever, until kingdom come." An Afro-Guyanese security guard expresses his opinion on ethnic voting patterns.

He goes on to say that there is no guarantee that ethnic tensions will be reduced by introducing shared governance and to suggest that the African population is being denied the feeling of control of the country is to say that the PPP/C, as a matter of policy, is denying them a sense of participation. "Nothing can be further from the truth. The allocation of resources in the important social sectors of education, health, water, roads and electricity positively affected all Guyanese at equal measure. There is no limitation of expression or freedom of association. There is no discrimination in the allocation of jobs in the public sector or the distribution of state facilities such as house lots or access to credits." Persaud also points to the establishment of the Ethnic Relations Commission, which has enormous powers of sanction in the event of an individual or organisation being found guilty of discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity. He stresses that the ERC was designed not just to combat discrimination, but the perception of discrimination.

For the PPP/C then, shared governance is an unnecessary excess and other measures of inclusive governance are the way forward. But for the PNC/R this is not the case, and McAllister expresses a strong belief that executive power- sharing is the way forward, "Our problem is that an antagonistic competition exists between the two major ethnic groups in this society, where it is known that the winner takes all. The faster we realise that if we put in place an arrangement where we all work together as Guyanese to create the kind of competitive advantages to encourage investment, the better it is going to be for us."

Dev is of the opinion that power-sharing could soften ethnic tensions and dissolve insecurities and suspicions, though he admits that it is not 'a silver bullet'. He sees it as an accompaniment of other initiatives, in particular his idea of federalising Guyana, and suggests that executive power-sharing at a national level may simply need to be a temporary measure, perhaps only for two terms. "The situation now is closely matched that each group thinks with a little push it can win. But once you have a structure where you can accommodate both groups, a new question arises, who can best represent my interests. It's now ok to vote against my own, because my own will still be there. Voting against your own is no longer seen as a betrayal. It's ok to split the vote. New parties can form within each block." His argument here is that the removal of the desire for overall control and the fear of losing leading to subjugation will put issues back at the centre of Guyanese politics, rather than race, breaking down ethnic voting patterns and leading towards more responsible voting.

A guy in Palm Court tells me he's sick of the government. "Who did you vote for?" I ask. "The PPP." "Oh, will you vote for them again?" "Yes." 'But why if you don't approve of what they do?" "Because I have straight hair. That's how it works in Guyana, if you have straight hair you vote PPP, if you have curly hair you vote PNC."

Sheila Holder's feelings are on a similar level to those of Dev's, hoping that her vision of power-sharing will lead to voters looking to issues rather than race. "We need to create an environment where people will have the confidence that their views will count for something. I believe this will best be manifested in the reduction of levels of violence that we see in society, and the levels of poverty. When the people grow in confidence, they'll concentrate on issues rather than just simply throwing their support behind these two political dinosaurs."

So what, then, is the future of power-sharing in Guyana? Clearly there is much support amongst the opposition parties to look further at the possibility of shared governance in Guyana, but the government has its reservations. Robert Persaud is keen to point out that the state is still in transition in terms of governance and the PPP/C is committed to working steadfastly with opposition, civil society and the donor community. "On the specific issue of executive power sharing, the PPP feels that there has to be a consolidation of trust and commonality of broad national objectives at a programmatic level before any discussion on this matter can be meaningfully explored. The current initiatives of the PPP/Civic administration in the further democratisation of decision-making at the legislative and executive levels can be regarded as a point of departure to other levels of governance provided of course, that there is good faith and a sense of reciprocity by the main opposition."

The idea of executive power sharing has many pros and cons, and it appears difficult to say what kind of impact it might have in Guyana. Opinions are mixed as to if and how a system of shared governance would improve on the current form of government, have any impact on ethnic tensions in society or the relations between the major political parties.

It seems any changes that are made are going to be difficult, due to mistrust, reservations and insecurities among all groups. But the fact that changes will be so difficult on these grounds is perhaps the reason why they need to be made. What is certain though, is that the changes will have to come soon, as a disgruntled population is giving up on its country.

"Do you think things will ever get better in Guyana" I ask yet another security guard. 'Sometimes I think things will never change here 'cept if God comes down himself and saves us."


Article 13 and the Role of civil society
- How far-reaching is the requirement for consultation?


Recent constitutional amendments introduced sweeping changes to the way Guyana has to be governed but events since they were given legislative effect indicate that the parliamentarians who unanimously enacted them are unaware of how far-reaching they are.

This is the inescapable conclusion to be drawn from the reaction to the initiative of the Social Partners to break the political impasse between the PPP/C and PNC/R and to have the political parties create the environment that would allow Article 13 of the constitution to be given effect.

The constituent organisations of the Social Partners are the Guyana Trades Union Congress, the Guyana Bar Association and the Private Sector Commission.

Their initiative were launched last year at a time when there was a feeling that civil society should play an active part in helping to resolve the impasse and not leave it only to the political parties to do so.

There were a number of meetings at which various non-governmental organisations participated but the Social Partners grouping decided to continue with the initiative the three organisations had already set in train. These meetings followed a retreat hosted by the Carter Center in which some members of the major political parties and representatives of the leading non-governmental organisations participated in a discussion about the role of civil society.

The Social Partners invoked the provisions of Article 13 as the rationale for their intervention since together with the then rampant crime wave, the political impasse was strangling the country's political and economic development.

The reaction of the PPP/C and PNC/R was guardedly enthusiastic. Their enthusiasm was grounded in the desire of a majority of their members to get the Jagdeo/Hoyte dialogue process back on track, and their caution, though in varying degrees by the two parties, arose from a suspicion about the true motive for the initiative, especially with the invocation of Article 13.

Article 13 declares: "The principal objective of the political system of the State is to establish an inclusionary democracy by providing increasing opportunities for the participation of the 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."

The reaction of the parties was not surprising given the polarised nature of the society and the resulting predisposition to assign political labels based on the colour of a person's skin or the texture of their hair. It is not surprising either that the chairman of the Private Sector Commission, Dr Peter de Groot, was its chairman and main spokesperson, as he told the resident diplomatic community at a luncheon in September, there are not enough "putagees to go around".

The leading members of the other organisations, TUC general secretary, Lincoln Lewis and then GBA president, Nigel Hughes are perceived by the PPP and government officials as being "anti-government" and raised questions about whether the grouping could realistically perform the functions of honest broker.

But Dr de Groot's view is echoed by the Palm Court patron who is quoted as saying in the Ross Robertson article in this issue, "... if you have straight hair you vote for the PPP, if you have curly hair you vote for the PNC."

The National Assembly enacted Article 13 along with amendments to Articles 149C and 232 without dissent and, as Haslyn Parris, one of the persons to whom Current Affairs spoke about the role of civil society, says, "without any exploration of the difficulties that would be caused when their provisions are invoked."

Parris was secretary to the Constitution Reform Commis-sion (CRC) and to the Parliamentary Oversight Committee on Constitutional Reform, which gave legislative form to the Commission's recommendations. More importantly, he is the source of the CRC's recommendation, re: Article 13 and its wording remained unchanged through the drafting process.

Article 149C provides: "No person shall be hindered in the enjoyment of participating through cooperatives, trades union, civic or socio-economic organisations of a national character, in the management and decision-making processes of the State."

Article 232 sets out the protocol to be followed where the constitution requires "meaningful consultation" which involves writing to the person or entities identified to be consulted, specifying the subject of the consultation and the date by which a decision is to be made, affording the person or entity reasonable time to express a considered opinion, preparing a written record of the consultation and informing the person or entity consulted in writing of the decision that was taken following the consultation.

Parris asserts that an essential requirement for the operationalisation of these articles is a new political culture. However, while all the parties declare this as being desirable, they cannot as yet decide whether that new culture should represent a complete break with the past or just modification of the old political behaviour.

It was not only in the area of politics that civil society mobilised citizen action to have issues addressed. Mothers In Black, stung by the deaths of their children through reckless speeding, have been campaigning for more than two years for stricter enforcement of the traffic laws. Their campaign led to the enactment of the Seat Belt Law but not with the kind of involvement that Article 13 envisages. WAVE (Women Against Violence Everywhere) came into being uniting women across social and political barriers to protest the rampant killing and violence the society witnessed during the crime spree that engulfed the Georgetown and the Lower East Coast for more than a year.

Lifeline Counselling services has been in the vanguard of sensitising Guyanese in the 15-24 year age group about HIV/AIDS and the various service clubs and charitable organisations run homes that provide accommodation for indigent senior citizens. The Cancer Society has been providing counselling and assistance to persons diagnosed with various types of cancer.

All these are examples of citizens' action as a result of the identification of a need such as that which moved the Central Islamic Organisation of Guyana to solicit the donation of the Caesium units to treat women who are afflicted with cancer of the cervix.

With the amelioration of the crime situation the constituent groups of WAVE are focusing their efforts on addressing the traumatic effects of the crime wave in a less dramatic manner.

The commencement of the constructive engagement between President, Bharrat Jagdeo and PNC/R leader, Robert Corbin, independent of the efforts of the Social Partners, helpful though their efforts were, effectively strangled the initiative.

The unresolved questions then are what should be the role of civil society in ensuring political stability and what are the arrangements in place for facilitating its carrying out that role?

Current Affairs sought the views of Dr Henry Jeffrey, Minister of Education and Former Deputy Prime Minister, Haslyn Parris, on the issue given the provisions of Article 13.

Dr Jeffrey is one of the government representatives involved in the negotiation of the issues being discussed in the Jagdeo-Corbin "constructive engagement".

Dr Jeffrey believes that with the establishment of the various parliamentary sector committees and rights commissions there will be an array of arrangements that would allow all the various interest groups to be involved in policy development.

A pressing question for Dr Jeffrey, given the useful initiative of the Social Partners to resolve the political impasse that had existed, is the arrangements that could be made that would allow civil society to be part of a process in the event that "constructive engagement" breaks down.

But in the speech to the diplomatic community, Dr de Groot urged the establishment of an independent mechanism to monitor the implementation of the decisions taken during the "constructive engagement". During its initiative the Social Partners had suggested the establishment of a secretariat that monitors not only the dialogue decisions but also the implementation of the constitutional and parliamentary reforms.

Given that the breakdown of the Jagdeo/Hoyte dialogue process was due to their parties' differing interpretations as to what decisions were fully implemented or not, an independent monitoring mechanism can surely help in avoiding another breakdown.

Dr Jeffrey's views of what Article 13 entails differ from Parris' view in terms of what he perceives as government's mandate. He contends that in any given society, it is the right of the legitimate government to make the final decision once an issue has been fully discussed and all the possible solutions laid on the table.

Parris's view is that Article 13 provides for a different approach to decision-making, which requires the abandonment of the adversarial approach for a consensual approach that involves the exploration of ideas.

He argues that under Article 13, the party with the majority in the parliament has no mandate to make major decisions without the formal input of the electorate. The letter and spirit of Article 13 intend that "decision-making" power remains with the electorate, according to Parris. Also he says that as a consequence the government's responsibility is to (a) stimulate the generation of creative solutions by the community to its perceived problems, (b) manage effectively the implementation of those solutions and (c) to be accountable to the electorate for the discharge of its responsibilities in the discharge of its functions under (a) and (b).

Given the requirements of the exploration approach, Parris says that the society would need a core of persons trained to facilitate arrival at consensual decisions derived from the evolution of cooperation. Various consultation protocols would de used depending on the issues involved.

'For instance, using Parris' model, once the need for an effective means of treating Guyanese women suffering from cancer of the cervix had been the issue identified, all the relevant Civil Society interest groups, including the Cancer Society, relevant women's groups, and other groups like the CIOG, would have been involved formally in exploratory discussions with the Government. These discussions would have been under the guidance of persons with appropriate medical expertise and experience. The sequence of discussions would have determined the treatment arrangements that would be instituted, hopefully in a consensual manner; and would have informed the CIOG's approach to its fraternal organisations for assistance. Also, they would have devolved on the Government the formal responsibility to keep the groups that had participated in the discussions apprised of the progress and status of implementation. The revised Constitution provides for this regimen of meaningful consultation.

Parris puts forward the argument that the issue on which consultation is required will determine the groups to be consulted and they are then required by the constitution to consider all the information about the issue, including the strengths and weakness of the various contending ideas.

"Inclusive democracy demands (the) use of the process of exploration ... because in exploration inhere the foundations of creativity without which the paradigm shifts are often impossible."

One of the consequences, which flow from the provisions of Articles 13 and 149C but which the various interest groups are yet to invoke, according to Parris, is the right of the trade unions to be meaningfully consulted on the Letter of Intent usually signed by the Ministry of Finance and the International Monetary Fund.

Another is the right of communities, teachers and students to be meaningfully consulted in the planning of repairs to school buildings and for them to be involved in certifying that the work for which substantial sums of monies are paid has been completed satisfactorily.

While the invocation of the latter right might be easily accommodated, it is not clear how the IMF would react to a situation where the Finance Minister is constitutionally required to undertake "meaningful consultation" with all those groups likely to be affected.

Another consequence of Article 13 that Parris identifies is the threat that the "decision-making mechanism for the operation of political patronage has been constitutionally hobbled" given the transparency mandated by the constitution about the consultation required on issues about which decisions are to be made.

Parris points out too that while Article 13 defines those persons or groups who have a constitutional right to be consulted, it does not comment on which groups should be excluded from the consultations on the grounds that they are not affected either directly or indirectly.

This dimension, Parris contends, "rapidly leads to considerations of sovereignty." "It may well be", he says, "that the constitution driven by the desire for inclusive governance, is adequately specific on guidelines for inclusion; but that on the issue of sovereignty it remains vague."

He observes that considerations of inclusion in decision making have the obverse of exclusion. "Thus, even while we seek to master consultation protocols and processes, avoiding the jeopardy of gridlock, we will have to deal with exclusion regimes if we are to give meaning to, and preserve, national sovereignty."

Another school of thought is that Article 13 is declaratory and not justiciable since it merely sets out an objective to which none could object and equally which none could have enforced at law. On the other hand, the opponents of this view argue that it can be enforced when read in conjunction with Article 149C which elevates the right to be part of the decision making process to a fundamental right.


The man who would be president
Lawyer says he wants to give the party a choice


Former PPP/C Information Minister, Moses Nagamootoo, has announced his intention of putting forward his candidature for his party's nomination for the presidency and any other post to be contested at the 2006 elections.

During an interview with Mr Yesu Persaud on the 'Eye on the Issues' programme aired on CNS Channel 6 on March 9, Nagamootoo announced that he would seek his party's support in any and every post to be contested at the next elections. He told his host: "Yes, I will make myself available and I will offer up myself first to my party and then to the people of Guyana."

The PPP passed over Nagamootoo, the veteran politician and chose Bharrat Jagdeo to succeed Janet Jagan as president when, in August 1999, she resigned because of ill health.

Despite completing his legal studies more than 18 months ago, he is still out in the cold and his name has not been extracted from the list of candidates to fill any of the vacancies that arose in the parliament since his return. He told Persaud that he "found it unusual" since at a meeting with President Jagdeo after his assumption of the Presidency, Janet Jagan had suggested that he be made a vice president. He asserted: "There is always a large body of opinion within the ranks of the PPP and wider society as to what the role of Nagamootoo could be. I'm not flattering myself about that!"

Responding to the question as to what strong points he would bring to the presidency, Nagamootoo said in the interview that he will bring to the table an understanding of people, which goes beyond the veil of race. He said that he has always shared his life with Africans in the nearby communities to Bath, (West Coast, Berbice) where he grew up.

He explained that while living on the sugar estate, he gravitated to the Lutheran Church. And as a boy he slept with the fishermen, both Indian and African, of his village on the same bag in his parents' home and ate roti that his mother made for breakfast with them before they went fishing.

Contacted by Current Affairs, Nagamootoo confirmed his intention to seek his party's nomination, explaining that he was doing so "to make the contest competitive and exciting and to give the party a choice". He said he understood that no one had ever challenged an incumbent but that his entering the fray was not about incumbency but about "diversity in styles and leadership qualities".

Nagamootoo has been a member of the PPP for about 40 years, moving through the ranks from the National Students Committee where he was secretary, to the Progressive Youth Movement, where he held the post of vice-chairman. He was first elected to the party's central committee in 1976 and the executive committee in 1978.

In the interview he told Persaud that the momentum of the Cheddi Jagan administration had not been kept up as the issues had not been followed up as assiduously as he would have wished.

He said that Cheddi Jagan, who was Guyana's President from October 1992 to March 1997, had a clear vision as to where he wanted to take Guyana and the need for political cooperation. He said Jagan always dreamt of returning to the unity of the early 1950s and his 1992-1997 administration held out the promise of a small and efficient government where its leaders would choose to forego an ostentatious way of living.

He cited to Current Affairs, "the slowing down of the economy". He said that though there might have been extenuating situations, as well as the deterioration in political relations from what it had been under Cheddi Jagan "... post-1992 we had seen an incipient development of a culture of partnership in several areas - business, labour and even in the political sphere."

He explained too that at the grassroots level, the promise of 1994 to qualitatively develop participatory democracy has lost its way in that with "no renewal of mandates at the local levels, most of the grassroots peoples' bodies have become dysfunctional".

Nagamootoo recalled that as minister of Local Government, he had seen the enthusiasm of the people to change the conditions of their environment and existence as being at an all time high. "Now", he said, "with no local government elections we can say, if we are honest, we have lost the momentum to accelerate rural development. Generally, then there was much greater energy in the society than we have now." However, he said that it was up to the political pundits to postulate how and when we lost it (the momentum).

Nagamootoo said that a lot of the momentum loss was because of self-inflicted instability and crime and the diversion of resources to anti-crime activities. However, a significant portion was because of a lack of total commitment and resolve from all the political players to move the country forward qualitatively.

Another issue about which Nagamootoo said the momentum was not kept was that of national unity, which he said has to be attained over time. He explained that the problem of racial division has been there since the 1950s - from the time of the PPP split into the Burnham and Jagan factions. He explained that in the intervening years Dr Jagan had made various attempts to bring about cooperation between the PPP and the PNC, as they represented the major race groups. He recalled that in the 1960s, an attempt was made at forming a coalition government and in the 1970s Jagan had called for a National Front Government to bring about cooperation between the two mass-based parties.

He observed that there was need for proper unity, which involved an agreement between the two parties on a set of policies that would move the country to where they wanted it to be.

Nagamootoo said too many people, including himself, were guilty of mouthing phrases such as participatory democracy, power sharing and inclusiveness without reducing them to policy issues. "Unity takes many forms but becomes fragile if we do not agree in advance on what we are united for and how we intend to achieve it."

He stressed that the unity has to be "programmatic," explaining that just as the PPP and PNC agreed on a menu of measures for the dialogue, "they must work out a raft of policies on which they have agreed and which must be implemented within agreed timeframes." In this way, he explained, the periodic disagreements will not be over national issues or goals, such as the maintenance of the country's territorial integrity - the defence of which the parties should be committed to however much they disagree on other things and irrespective of which of them form the government.

About the possibility of the parties working together, he told Persaud that the Public Accounts Committee was the best example that they could and the recent parliamentary reforms provided a glorious opportunity to enlarge the arena of parliamentary power and to intercede in all the major issues of national life.

Nagamootoo said that as a democracy, the country has to develop what constitutional lawyers call "indigenous norms," which involve the existence of a responsible opposition, not the textbook "loyal opposition" since it has to portray itself as an alternative government. He stressed that the leaders had to be responsible, lest they surrender their parties to mob rule.

Asked by Persaud if the present insecurities harboured by the two major groups in the society could have been avoided, Nagamootoo said that the fears of the Indian and African communities had to be recognised and addressed in a comprehensive and dispassionate manner.

Asked about his views on power-sharing by Persaud, Nagamootoo asserted that it had to proceed from trust between the parties and to see sharing of power not as a sign of weakness but as a sign of strength.

He said in sharing power, the parties had to ensure that power translated into inclusiveness that creates a reservoir of all the skills available in the society.

He said that power-sharing involves the need to strengthen what can be shared such as the regional administrations, five of which the PPP do not control, the municipalities, and the neighbourhood democratic councils as a way of bringing out a higher form of building trust.

But he stressed the need for an opposition with a sense of duty and responsibility and not one which claims elections are rigged when it loses and brings it supporters out on the streets.

Asked if he was pessimistic about Guyana descending into anarchy, Nagamootoo told Persaud that he had seen situations before where the soul of the nation saved it from going over the brink. He says the Guyanese people want to live together as they recognise that Guyana will always belong to all its people. He says that Guyanese people must all see hope in the hopeless situations and must overcome the temptation to be negative.

About his role in the party now that he has nailed his colours to the mast, Nagamootoo told Persaud that he has to define his role in the PPP's central committee and executive committee as he had been repeatedly elected to both for more than two decades.

He said that if he felt he "cannot change things from going to meetings, I will stay away from meetings. I'm that way. It reflects my own revolutionary outlook. I am not one of these yes men or cronies. I think we need to do things in a more businesslike way. We need to be serious. Focus on issues, we must come out. We are the PPP in the old Marxian term - the vanguard party. We have to lead and we have to lead by example. We have to deal with issues."

Asked to clarify if his remarks about the party extended to the government, Nagamootoo explained that there must be a separation of state and party. However, he asserted that the party derived its mandate from the people and therefore must be more demanding of the government to deliver to its constituents and the nation at large. "The party cannot appear to be a spin-off of the government! It must become its watchdog and also its agitator."

He said that when he spoke of the party's role he meant that "it must do everything to combat sloth and lethargy where these exist and also place on the front burner the manifesto issues be they national unity or any other issue that requires the pronouncement of decisions."

Asked if he was satisfied with the pace at which the constructive engagement between President Jagdeo and PNC/R leader Robert Corbin was proceeding, Nagamootoo said "not really", but added that this might be because he was not near to it. He observed that it had nothing to do with the leaders, it is just that they could not see the fruits of the dialogue. "I take the citizen's view of it and ask the layman's question - why what they are doing is taking so long and why isn't it bringing the (expected) changes to my life?"

Asked what he recommended should be done in the circumstances to speed it up, Nagamootoo said that both parties should stop looking at the past and trying to apportion blame. They both need to say what they want to do and do it.

He said that there was no new Commissioner of Police because the Police Service Commission has not been established and questioned why it has not been established. He said the answer was the chicken and egg syndrome, which the country could ill-afford and which created a frustrating environment. "The two sides have to get on with the job."

Responding to questions about his unrepentant adherence to his Marxist outlook, Nagamootoo explained that the ideology was still relevant as it was a science, which addresses the weaknesses of the society.

He said that following the recent power outage in the United States, where the companies are privately owned, there are now calls for the State to take them over because of the security implications.

He said, too, that because of environmental considerations, the State had to be concerned with the manner in which a country's natural resources were exploited.

He pointed out that he was not saying that Marxism was the solution to all problems since centralised planning has its limitations. But he pointed out that Cheddi Jagan was an ethical Marxist who believed that much more could be done if a country's resources were not concentrated in the hands of a few people.


"Doing it differently" is United Associates Security and Domestic Services' approach to providing services

Three years ago, United Associates Security and Domestic Services (UASDS) opened its doors and a new era of trade union activity in Guyana. It has managed to survive by "doing it differently," an approach the company's Chief Executive Officer, Robert Johnson, says that it has had to adopt to be competitive in the private security sector. Johnson is president of the National Union of Public Service Employees (NUPSE), one of the two unions which represented the security guards then employed in the public service. The other union was the Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers (UAAW).

In 2000, faced with the necessity to reduce its employment costs to meet the conditionalities of the IMF and HIPC programmes, the government was faced with the need to outsource the provision of security services for its offices and other properties in the ten administrative regions.

Faced with the prospect of a further reduction in their membership, the two unions approached the government to take over the employment of the guards and to provide their services at no increase in cost to the government. The offer was advantageous to both parties as the government would then have one company to deal with rather than a number of companies which could have been the outcome if it went to public tender for the service in the various regions and the unions had the benefit of retaining their members as well as becoming involved in a economic venture.

In November 2000, UASDS was formally launched providing guards for all government buildings in the regions including schools, health centres, hospitals, except the George-town Public Hospital, regional properties and storage bonds and locations where heavy equipment is stored.

Because they were being employed by a new company, the guards received their severance and other termination benefits as public servants and their employment with UASDS began from the date of their recruitment.
Robert Johnson

USADS employees are paid $117 an hour for an eight-hour shift as against $120 an hour for a 12-hour shift that is paid by some of its more established competitors.

Johnson is the company's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and driving force and Seelo Baichan, the president of UAAW is its chairman. As CEO, Johnson is not a salaried employee of the company but he gets "a board fee and some allowances". The company pays the other officers such as the Chief Accoun-tant, Human Resources Manager and the Administrative and Operations Coordinator.

In an exclusive interview with Current Affairs, Johnson said that so far the company has been able to meet its objective of maintaining the employment of its members and has been able to increase the membership of the unions by providing employment for another 250 persons as a result of its being able to sell its services to some private sector companies. The impending job cuts at the time would have resulted in the services of 1277 security guards being terminated.

He says that it continues to provide the service to the government at the same price it did when it took over in 2000.

Johnson says that if a private company had been allowed to take over the provision of these services to the government, not all the guards would have been retained.

Johnson says that UASDS has been able to move out of the Ministry of Works compound to its present locations, where it rents two adjacent buildings to house its secretariat and headquarters. Its management structure is lean - it has a headquarters staff of 13, which includes its accounting, administration and human resources department. It plans to move to new premises at 23 Fort Street, Kingston, which was acquired as part of its expansion programme.

It is also expanding its services to provide background checks for companies, armed escort for payroll and a discreet personal escort service for individuals to and from the airport and anywhere else in the country.

Johnson says that the company also provides construction services as well as security assessment and that it looks at ways of accommodating its clients such as flexible payment schemes. "We are dong things differently to attract new clients and retain our existing ones".

Johnson addressing some of the more frequently made complaints by his company's employees, points out that the company has had some teething problems but that things are on an even keel now.

He explained that one source of complaint was UASDS's inability to meet its commitment to pay its staff on the 26th day of the month as had been the practice when the guards were employees of the government. He said that delays were due to the late receipt of payment from the various regional administrations.

He said too that the company had to deal with a related problem arising from paying their workers on the 26th day. He said that initially when the guards were paid on the 26th, not a few left the job, which resulted in the company having the additional expense of providing another guard for a location.

Johnson explained that between November 200 and early 2001, there was a not insignificant turnover of staff, especially after pay day and to address this problem, the company was forced to change the pay day closer to the end of the month. He says that the law requires payment to be made on or before the last day of the month, but pay day is normally between the 27th-29th day of the month.

He explained however that things have improved considerably and the turnover is now not at a significant level.

Another complaint by UASDS' employees is the deduction of union dues and Johnson addressed this seeming anomaly of the union representing its members to itself. He points out that once a person joins the company he becomes a member of the union.

He also points out that both unions have officers directly responsible for dealing with matters brought to their attention by their members employed by the company, and that these matters are represented to the appropriate officer in the company. However, he said that company's top management, which includes himself, would only become involved if the issue is not resolved at the lower level. He says that most times the issues are resolved by compromise but that there are as a security company, certain non-negotiables - sleeping on the job and drunk on duty - for which the penalty is instant dismissal.

Another complaint which Johnson says is not now as prevalent is the late relief of staff. He explained that in the past it was a problem since the guards are not allowed to abandon the location to which they are assigned.

To address the problem, Johnson says that a person who turns up to relieve a colleague up to two hours late loses four hours' pay which is paid to his colleague.

Johnson said that while the company provides 14 days paid vacation, once applied for within a stipulated period, it does not provide paid sick leave which is covered by the National Insurance Scheme. It does however provide incentives whereby a worker who has two days or less sick days in a six-month period gets an extra $1000 a month.

He points out that as a security company without a large reserve, it cannot afford to provide paid sick leave as if a third of its 1500 workforce is to fall sick in any one month, it would soon go bankrupt. Also he points out that the company's clients pay for one guard and it's the company's responsibility to provide that service.

As a result, Johnson says it is less costly to provide incentives than paid sick leave.

He points out too that because the company is employee-oriented, the board often provides benefits before the unions have made representations for them.

Johnson says that the company has a contributory welfare fund to which the employee contributes $100 a month which is matched by the company. From this fund the employee is entitled to borrow up to $30000 to meet expenses such as the purchase of school books and uniforms, medical expenses and other emergencies. He said that is hoped at a later date to have the fund be the basis for a pension fund.

Johnson says too that the company also looks at the social development of their employees and has mounted a literacy programme, which it has trained its supervisors to deliver. He says the company encourages those of their employees unable to read or write to devote some time when on the location to practise forming letters and learning to read. He said that one of its employees at a Berbice location no longer uses a thumbprint as he has learnt to write his name.

Johnson said that its training programme has enabled its employees to see themselves not as watchmen but as security officers whose responsibility "is to prevent things happening at a location - theft, fire, etc. They are trained to takeover a site and service it."

He said that they no longer come to work with hammocks and sheets as had been the practice when the company took over the service.

Johnson says that while they have guards sixty and over, and who perform creditably, they try to limit recruitment to persons who could give them at least ten years' service.

He says that they also employ temporary guards who are paid $90 an hour and these are persons who have been interviewed, and checked out and make themselves available when contacted to work. He said if they are reliable, they can be consistently called out and are later taken on staff as soon as a vacancy arises or the company is `contracted to service a new location.


A house divided against itself
- the state of the trade union movement in Guyana

Three of the bigger unions are outside the Guyana Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the division has undermined its capacity to properly promote the interest of the workers.

The unions outside the umbrella organisation are the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), the largest union in the country, the National Association of Agri-cultural, Commercial and Industrial Employees (NAACIE), the Clerical and Commercial Workers Union (CCWU) and the Guyana Mineworkers Union (GMU), which are members of the resuscitated Federation of Indepen-dent Trade Unions of Guyana (FITUG). The CCWU, whose general secretary, Grantley Culbard, is the president of FITUG and a TUC vice president, has not withdrawn from the TUC. The other union outside the TUC is the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU), the third largest union in the country. Its reason for being outside the TUC is that it cannot pay its outstanding dues to the TUC as a result of the government's termination of the check-off and agency fees agreement.

The division has led to the holding of separate rallies on May Day even though they may all take part in the march, organised by the TUC, which precedes the rallies.

More importantly, the division has led to a weakening of the TUC's financial position, which is also aggravated by the government withholding the $5 million subvention allocated for it in the national budget this year. Because it is cash-strapped, the movement cannot properly service its affiliates, pay its staff a proper wage, has little or no research capability and Current Affairs understands, no complete telephone service - can only receive calls.

Though there are five unions outside the TUC, the discussion about disunity usually refers to the absence of the GAWU and NAACIE, both of which are considered pro-government, from the movement and there is a widely held view that their return to the TUC fold depends on whether or not its suits the government's approach to the umbrella body. GAWU's president, Komal Chand is a PPP parliamentarian, and NAACIE's former president, Dr Nanda Gopaul is now Head of the Public Service and Permanent Secretary of the Public Service Ministry and the government's lead negotiator in wages talks with the unions.

There are ongoing efforts to bridge the division in the movement but a solution seems as elusive as a dream because of the political affiliation of the major unions to the PPP and PNCR.

To get a better appreciation of the effect of the division in its ranks on the movement, Current Affairs spoke to a number of veteran trade unionists, including Culbard, Charles Sampson, the president of the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers' Union (GB&GWU), who is member of the TUC executive council, and Leslie Melville, a veteran trade unionist and adviser to the GPSU about the issue. It also tried to arrange interviews with the leaders of NAACIE and GAWU but was told that both are out of the country.

Melville says, "presently the government is practically waging war against the TUC" and explains that the division of the labour movement has political overtones and "prevents the trade union movement from protecting and advancing the well being of its members." Also he adds that the government behaves towards the TUC in the way it does because it knows that the movement is weak.

He says that the seeds of the division were planted when, in 1955 the PPP was split into the Jaganite and Burhamite factions and traces the roots of the government's attitude to that of the then Cheddi Jagan led PPP administration during the 1957 elections.

Melville explains that during that election, the then urban-based and mainly black-led trade union movement favoured the Burnhamite faction of the PPP and Jagan, whose faction won the elections, harboured an animosity towards Burnham, who had engineered the split in the PPP, which coloured his attitude to the trade union movement.

He explains too, that another factor, which contributed to the weakness of the trade union movement, is the later affiliation of individual unions to the Burnham-led People's National Congress (PNC). And he accuses the then government of practically waging war against the TUC, which some PPP officials at the time described as "a beer-guzzling set-up", a statement that helped to solidify the relationship between the TUC and the Burnham government.

Melville explains that while Burnham openly declared what the relationship with the labour movement should be, the PPP administration is today operating in a different environment where there is worldwide attention on it, so that it cannot do openly what Burnham did and get away with it.

He points out that the international agencies require conventions to be honoured such as those of the International Labour Organisation and that the release of funds under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries initiative requires an improvement in the industrial relations and political climate.

He stresses that unless the trade union movement speaks with one voice, no one will take it seriously.

Both Culbard and Sampson share this view. Culbard says that though the administration pays lip service to trade union unity, it is happy with the division being perpetuated since it can get away with murder.

He asserts that because of the division in the movement, the "workers are not getting the best representation in the light of the very difficult economic conditions facing them." He observes too that that the movement is "so divided that if things require united action to call a strike the workers would not respond, because of their dissatisfaction with how things are being addressed."

He said that, for example, in his union, the level of militancy differs between the branches and the actions it would advocate would vary according to their militancy.

Culbard notes that because of the dictates of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the country is experiencing very hard times but the trade union movement cannot address them to bring relief to its members because of the division within its ranks. He says however, that there are forces both among the breakaway unions and among the TUC members which are working against the division being bridged.

Sampson says that the division in the union movement is due to politics and not to any differences in dealing with the problems facing their members. He contends that there was more unity among the unions prior to 1992 than at present, explaining that when FITUG was originally formed in 1988 it was to oppose things being done by the then government such as their behaviour to unions considered anti-government.

Sampson observes that the primary function of a union is the promotion and safeguarding of the welfare of its members and that unions should always be mindful before leaning towards a political party/government, as there will always be a crunch time when it would have to make a choice between the interest of its members and that of the political party/government.

Culbard echoes this view. He says that while "unions must take an interest in what happens politically, a trade union must look after the interest of the workers and politicians look after what is their business."

He says that he dislikes the idea of unions taking a lead role in politics since their members comprise supporters of various political parties. He says that the unions should ask the parties to pursue policies in the interest of the workers and in practice what happens is that the parties influence what happens in the unions.

Culbard observes too, that it is unfortunate that in this country a unionist is targeted for destruction if he advocates working class views, which run counter to the party's position. "People must be allowed to express their views and hear each other out in a search for common ground," he said, adding "we need to pay attention to each other's views and adopt measures in the interest of the working people we represent."

Sampson contends that because of the division, lots of things that can be achieved are not being pursued and notes that had the movement been united, the government would not have dared to delay settling the wages disputes with the GPSU and the Guyana Teachers' Union (GTU).

He explains that the teachers' strike did not have the full support of all the teachers, as the Indian teachers did not fully support it, even though all the teachers would benefit from the increases for which the GTU was agitating.

Sampson says too, that a big problem is that in meetings between the government and the TUC, GAWU would not follow a TUC position if it cuts across that of the government. He notes too that Chand voted in parliament to approve an amendment to the Severance Pay Act, which prevents a worker from resigning and being entitled to receive the severance pay benefits provided for by the legislation. The TUC opposed the amendment.

Sampson observes that if that is the price of unity, then it would be better for GAWU to remain outside the TUC and do its own thing.

Sampson notes too that when a government backs a union it is able to get away with a lot of things against those considered as not being sympathetic to it. He cites the example of the GPSU signing up workers at a new sawmilling enterprise and when it submitted its application to the Trade Union Recognition Board, another union gets involved and he alleges that the in-formation is leaked to it from the Ministry of Labour, which it has openly accused of doing so.

He says too that in the process of increasing the number of workers that are unionised the Trade Union Recognition Board is a hindrance, a view that Culbard endorses. He says that the Board takes too long to finalise matters, which results in the workers losing out. "When a group is struggling to get recognition, it expects the process to move quickly but the slowness with which it moves allows the employers to break the rules."

He notes that the Act should be reviewed so as to tighten it up and so prevent this from happening. "A law is not a good law if it is not working in the interest of the people it is supposed to protect."

Culbard says that the Labour Ministry lacks the manpower and resources to monitor the implementation of the various procedures required by the Act and to impose the penalties stipulated therein. He observes that his experience is that some of the periods within which certain actions are required are too long and allows an uncooperative employer to frustrate attempts to unionise his workers.

He points out that the unions have complained about the length of time within which the employers are required to take certain action and which "some employers drag out to the last possible moment in an effort to break the ranks of the workers, some of whom, especially the younger ones, lack patience and want to see things happen in a hurry."

About the prospect of healing the breach both Sampson and Culbard are not sanguine, though Sampson is less so than his colleague.

Sampson says that the TUC has made a lot of effort to bridge the gap between the two sides but that the gap would not be bridged unless the government wants that to happen.

He says that GAWU's and NAACIE's main grouse is their inability to hold certain positions in the TUC and thus want the elections at the movement's congress to be set in a manner that would enable them to be elected to these positions. However, Sampson says that the elections at the TUC's congress are by secret ballot and it is up to the unions to ensure that their representatives are elected. Other complaints, which Current Affairs has heard, include their dissatisfaction with the way the TUC representatives are selected to attend overseas conferences and candidates are selected for scholarships offered to the TUC.

Culbard explains that both sides have not stuck to the Memorandum of Understanding that was signed that paved the way for the FITUG unions that broke away from the TUC in 1988 to return. The unions that broke away then, in addition to the present members included the GPSU and the GB&GWU as well.

He says that what GAWU and NAACIE want is a rotating presidency as happens in other parts of the world. He says that he cannot understand the opposition to a GAWU presidency since the president cannot act unilaterally and is just one member of the executive council, which has to support his decision. Also he says that the constitution limits the president to one three-year term.

He says that GAWU, which is the largest and best-run union in the country, wants to see a better organised TUC doing things in a way that brings meaningful benefits.

Culbard says that GAWU believes that as the largest union and the biggest contributor of affiliation dues, it should have some meaningful say in how the TUC is run. He says that it may well have a point as the way things are going has resulted in a general disillusionment of the workers.

He says, "There appear to be a few leaders who determine what should and should not be done which has resulted in frustration among those members trying to build up the power of the movement."

Cullbard explains that those TUC leaders calling the shots on the issues bothering GAWU and NAACIE are not from the larger unions but from the numerically smaller unions such as the National Association of Local Government Officers, which has just about 200 members and whose president, Andrew Garnett is the TUC's deputy general secretary; the General Workers' Union whose members consists mainly of the Banks DIH employees and whose president Norris Witter is always vocal on TUC business. He says too that the TUC general secretary, Lincoln Lewis, comes from the GB&GWU, which has lost a significant amount of members due to the downsizing of the bauxite industry and is now trying to attract general workers.

He says that the Assistant Organising Secretary comes from the University of Guyana Workers' Union, another small union, and one of the Assistant Secretaries also comes from Witter's union.

Culbard says that the TUC has appointed himself and its president, Carvil Duncan, to talk with the unions outside the TUC to see if they can address, in a meaningful way, the things that bother them. Also he says that his membership of both blocs is kept up to bring a sense of solidarity with the FITUG unions and to see how the problems facing them can be addressed in a manner that the TUC is not well-balanced to do.

One of these problems, he said, is the manner in which the TUC officials relate to government officials, explaining that though the government does not do everything right, he did not agree with their being treated disrespectfully. "The state of the workers at the moment and the weaknesses of the movement (dictate) some degree of diplomacy in dealing with issues".

Culbard feels that the possibility of unity are more promising among the younger leadership as they are the ones who will have to complete the tasks now facing the movement. Also he says that the broad membership of the unions understand each other very well but that the problem is at the level of their leadership.

Melville expresses similarly views about the forces at work to prevent the movement from uniting. He says that it is not in the interest of the political administration for GAWU and NAACIE to be back in the TUC.

"On the other hand I do not believe that some of the unions now in the TUC by their statements and actions are creating the type of environment tyat would encourage the return of the breakaway unions."

Minister of Labour Dr Dale Bisnauth last month told Current Affairs that he would be taking steps to see if he could influence a return of the breakway unions to the TUC but Melville believes that he will not succeed if it is not in the PPP's interest for them to return.

About the non-payment of the government's subvention, Culbard says that the government can afford to withhold the subvention because "they understand the depth of division and can play one (union) against the other".

Sampson asserts that the government is deliberately starving the TUC of funds, pointing out that the National Assembly approved of the subvention, which the movement would have taken into account when it prepared its budget. He said that if the movement was united, the money would not have been withheld.

But Sampson cautions that the "government should always be mindful of the indirect contribution of the unions to the national treasury", as every time the unions negotiate and win higher wages for its members the government gets a quarter to, at times, a third of the resulting increases in taxes, especially those who work at Omai, Linmine and Aroaima, where the workers pay is substantially above the minimum wage.

A consequence of the poor financial state of the TUC is its lack of a research capability. Sampson acknowledges this fact and explains that establishing a research capability requires funds to recruit the people with the requisite skills. However, he says that computers now allow for ease of access to information and the activity has evolved to a point where it means getting information in a timely manner.

However, Sampson points out that the industrial unions in their operations deal effectively with the question of research to enable them to be aware of developments (in their industries) and to be armed with the facts for negotiations with the employers.

Culbard, who headed the research unit at the Caribbean Congress of Labour (CCL) before he returned to Guyana, says it is not a question of funds as the movement can tap the reservoir of assistance available to it.

He recalled that while he was at the CCL, the TUC had a research officer with whom he related. However, over time that officer doubled as registrar of the Critchlow Labour College and later acted as its Principal before leaving the job.

Culbard says that the movement is in the process of trying to resuscitate its research department in a proper way based on a paper prepared by Professor C Y Thomas of the University of Guyana. He observes that things are being done in the TUC without proper research of the issues since the leaders do not have the time to do it and need people to provide that assistance so that when they engage the government or employers they can speak knowledgeably.

Melville too inveighs against the TUC's lack of a research capacity, pointing out that the movement is ineffective in bringing the nature of the problems the movement faces to the attention of the international agencies.

About the steps that the movement should take given the hardship the country faces, Culbard recalls that three years ago when he contested the TUC presidency which he lost to Carvil Duncan the secretary of the Guyana Labour Union, he had suggested a programme of engaging the government on economic and social issues in frank and open discussions as to how to overcome the identified problems.

He says that the government and unions need to address issues such as productivity as well as markers being targeted for the country's products bearing in mind that there are unions and workers in those countries with whom the unions could dialogue to help with the penetration.

He said that he also advocated the inclusion of trade union representatives on delegations to trade conferences.

Culbard observes that this is the sort of approach that is needed to try to overcome the difficulties the country faces and he makes the point that these difficulties will not disappear with a change of government.

He advocates too that the government taking on board those ideas of the political opposition which merit consideration as the Owen Arthur government did in Barbados as the Prime Minister felt that it was in the interest of the nation to implement them.

Both Sampson and Culbard say that the movement has the same problems with this administration as it had with the previous one, Culbard says that they are worse with the present administration, given their support for the FITUG unions in their struggle with the then government.

Culbard points to the problems the GPSU has with the present government even though it does things differently. He claims that the unions in the public service are still unable to bargain in the true sense of collective bargaining and are forced to accept what the government hands down.

He points out that the GPSU is well placed to advise as to what is going on in the economy because of where its members are located. "The government should welcome an exchange with the union to see what is possible based on what the economy can bear or say what is needed to improve the economy based on the international forces at play".

He observes that the GPSU is also best placed to advise the TUC but doesn't think that that was being done as it was outside of it.

Culbard suggests that Guyana should pursue the conclusion of a social contract as Barbados has done which has resulted in the creation of a National Productivity Board. He says that the TUC now serious about the idea

He recalled that he had suggested that the movement put forward its proposals to the government and employers but doesn't think that many people appreciated the initiative.

Culbard says that presently other groups have put forward proposals as a basis for discussion. Melville recalls a similar initiative with proposals agreed between the employers and the TUC that did not get anywhere. He is involved in a similar exercise where is being shepherded by Dr Bisnauth.

"We can't overlook that the country is in serious trouble. The economy is not taking off because the government is incapable of attracting investment," Melville says adding, "Something has to be done to create an investment friendly environment. Conflict will not assist in creating such an environment."

About the future of the movement both Sampson and Culbard agree that the various unions have to build up a strong second tier of leadership. Culbard explains that of the unions only GAWU has an in depth leadership team that is capable of taking the union's programme forward smoothly if the present top leadership steps off.

Culbard believes that if all the forces in the country are playing their part to build the economy we'll know what can and what cannot be demanded. If the playing field is level and all are contributing the workers need to have a reasonable and decent share.

He observes, "We can't have the same share if it is smaller. If it is bigger then we (should) be assured that there is something there for us."

Culbard notes too that presently the country pays 70 cents of every dollar it earns to repay its debts. "That kind of ratio cannot improve the living standards of the people of this country, so the question is how do we ease the burden"

He posits that the country is yet to see the worst as globalisation has not yet taken a toll on the country's affairs as yet and asks "are we prepare to deal with it?"

Culbard says that the movement has to get serious about the way it conducts its affairs, suggesting that the number of unions should be reduced from about 18-19 unions to about 6-8 to increase the bargaining power and strength of the merged unions and to better utilise scarce resources.

About the prospects for the economy Culbard says there is a light in the tunnel but he believes that it is the light of an oncoming train.