In a span of 11 years – 2002-2013 – the then Peoples’ Progressive Party (PPP) government installed 38 Interim Management Committees (IMCs) at the local government level in the absence of Local Government Elections (LGE).

This was revealed by the Ministry of the Presidency’s Communications Director, Mark Archer in a social media post yesterday.

Archer’s post was prompted by statements made by PPP candidates as the party intensifies its efforts to contest the November 12 LGE.

PPP Member of Parliament (MP) and former Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, Ganga Persaud topped the list, having installed 13 IMCs during the period.

Persaud resigned from that ministerial position in 2014 – the same year Local Elections were expected to be held.

Those elections had only been held once during the PPP’s 23 3years in office.

Persaud’s successor in 2014, Norman Whittaker continued the trend, establishing 10 more IMCs which were documented by Archer. Longstanding PPP members and former PPP ministers Kellawan Lall and Clinton Collymore installed eight and seven IMCs respectively.

Archer noted in his post that this repeated move was a clear demonstration that the: “PPP was more concerned with concentrating power in the hands of its appointed Minster of Local and Regional Government.”

He went on to state that: “Over a period of time the PPP systematically undermined democratically elected local councils and underdeveloped communities by impeding the provision of public services to residents. Neighbourhood and municipal councils were starved of funding thus making then ineffectual.”

The Communications Director then called on citizens to judge the opposition party on its record and not its “present populists’ rhetoric”.

“The PPP, while in office, destroyed our system of local democracy and created an unbalanced and undemocratic state. Thanks to the APNU Jagdeo et al are campaigning in their second local government elections in three years, a feat the PPP failed to accomplish in over two decades” he concluded.

Just recently the PPP announced its decision to withdraw from contesting one of the constituencies in Wakenaam. That decision followed allegations that the party’s candidates forged the signatures of persons on the backers list.

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