Tewarie: Local Government campaign focusing on foolishness

“In any election campaign, it is important to know what the party stands for and, secondly, given the way the campaign has been going, we find that there is a deterioration in the position of and approach of political parties especially the other side where basically they have resorted to bacchanal and kind of foolishness and we simply want to say, as the UNC, that we stand for something in this Local Government election and that we are committed to certain things in the Local Government election,” Tewarie said.

Asked afterwards why Local Government reform issues had not been raised on the campaign platform, Tewarie said the issues had been addressed at several meetings but lamented that the media had focused on the “juicier” parts of the campaign speeches.

“Well you heard some of it on the platform, part of the problem is the press,” he said, adding, “given the nature of press engagement of the public, it has been to highlight the things that are juicier, so in a way the message of government and governance and delivery and people-centred development has been lost,” “So we thought it was important to isolate this issue of the policy position of the UNC and to make it as clear as daylight to the press and through the press,” Tewarie said.

Rambachan also chimed in on the issue saying: “we have been putting this on social media and the last one had about nearly 9,000 hits as we have been using social media to get the message out also. But Dr Tewarie is very right, we have been speaking out about Local Government reform since the campaign began but the media is not really picking up on the Local Government reform.” Meanwhile, Tewarie said the Opposition party was in favour of Local Government reform, though noting the need for “constitutional protection for Local Government” given the questionable role of the Ministry of Rural Development.

“Is it complementary, is it supplementary or is it in competition with Local Government themselves?” he asked.

Asked whether the UNC would cooperate on Local Government reform when the Bill was tabled in Parliament, Tewarie said: “yes we are for Local Government reform and we will work in the legislative branch with the government in order to effect reform but we have a significant qualitative difference in our understanding of what that reform is.” “We agree there should be greater decentralisation, we agree there should be greater devolution of power, we agree there should be more autonomy for Local Government, we agree that Local Government should have financial stability and predictability and therefore be able to carry out their work on the basis of a plan.