‘I stand by my vote’

Dear Editor,

HAVING stated my reasons for taking a principled position on a motion which sought to disregard the authority of the Local Government Commission at the last Statutory meeting of Council, held on Monday, October 26, 2020, I made no further public comment on this matter, even in the face of Mayor Ubraj Narine capriciously making false and inaccurate utterances against me. (I will address those statements by Mayor Narine about me in a subsequent communication.) However, a letter, headlined, “Councillor Chase-Green should recall how PPP/C government ran roughshod over the city” in the November 5, 2020 issue of the Stabroek News and penned by Mr. Hamilton Green, Former Prime Minister and Former Mayor of Georgetown, caught my attention.

After reading the contents of that letter, I am led to believe that Former Mayor Green might not have been familiar with all the facts of the matter at hand. And while he has, facetiously, suggested in his letter that I am suffering from a “lapsus memoriae”, it is clear to me that Mr. Green has missed certain very critical points I raised in my letter to the press, dated October 26, 2020.

In fact, in his letter, Mr. Green failed to address the crux of the matter, which is a deliberate and illegal attempt by some members of the City Council, by way of an improper motion, to disregard the authority of the Local Government Commission. My decision to go against the motion turns upon this very point; nothing else.
Considering, more specifically, the content of his letter, three important points stand out: The perception of my voting with the PPP/C; the Local Government Commission; and loyalty. I shall now comment on these:

1. My voting against the motion had nothing to do with the PPP/C. I understand the intentionally deceptive strategy, by an insincere few, which is to create the perception that by my voting against the motion, I voted with that political party. Nothing could be further from the truth; it is not factual. The message from some quarters that I voted with the PPP/C is a complete farce. But even if the members of that party (PPP/C) voted along a similar line, what does that have to do with me? As I said elsewhere, I took a principled position on this matter.
2. Not the PPP/C or the Ministry of Local Government; the Local Government Commission. Mr. Green is attempting to put the improper action of the Council in the context of the turbulent environment that existed in the past, which adversely affected the relationship between the Council and the PPP/C government. It does not fit well. Whilst I can clearly remember the difficulties we have had with that political administration, we should not want to use those difficulties as an excuse to flout local government laws. If we do that, then we would be guilty of the same transgressions committed by those whom we seek to criticise in the past, and even now. A more critical point is the fact that this issue is not about the PPP/C; it is about the Local Government Commission. The Local Government Commission Act 2013 has conferred powers on the Commission to, inter alia, approve or disapprove recommended appointments by the Council. To be clear, as far as I am aware, the PPP/C did not give any instruction whatsoever to the Council on this matter; the Local Government Commission did. Ironically, at the time of its decision, the Commission was being chaired by a member of the APNU+AFC coalition. If the actions of the Chairman and at least three members of the Coalition, who sat as commissioners on the Commission and took the decision to suspend the recommended appointments by the Council, were not called into question, then why am I being unfairly and unreasonably criticised by some for voting consistent with that decision? This is not only nonsensical, but very dangerous, because we are disregarding one of the very pillars that underpins Local Democracy: The Rule of Law.
3. Loyalty: In his final paragraph, the former Mayor said: “We are very disappointed that she is being disloyal to the group to which she belongs … If her views were not carried, she should remain loyal, unless she has other options or opportunities which may or may not be so.” I must make two comments here: (i) Loyalty is easy to be misplaced. I have always been loyal to the Council, but it was and still is constantly betrayed. It is said that those who don’t know the value of loyalty can never appreciate the cost of betrayal. It is my considered view, and I hold firm to it, that one cannot breach personal and public trust, and then raise questions on loyalty. “If you cannot value a commitment made by someone else, your own commitments lose their value too,” Ram Mohan. If the Council, of which I am a member, attempts to break the law or treat flippantly important administrative protocols, as it is attempting to do with the recommended appointment of individuals of whom we don’t even know their competencies because the recruitment process used to shortlist them was seriously flawed, then it is at the same time betraying my trust in it to do the right thing. In the circumstance, I have no obligation to support wrongdoing, but be committed to doing what is right. (ii) Loyalty to whom? At the last Local Government polls, I obtained thousands of votes from ordinary people to represent them at the local level. I must first be loyal to them.

One final point. I am surprised that Mr. Green has commented the way he did on this issue, trumpeting the virtues of loyalty. The history of this country shows that in 1992, when the former Prime Minister had a serious disagreement with the leader, Mr. Desmond Hoyte, over the political governance of the party, he took a certain position and acted in a way that was out of sync with the position of the leader and the party at the time. In fact, the disagreement facilitated the formation of the ‘A Good and Green Guyana’ political party, with Mr. Green as its leader, and some of us (crossing over from the PNC/R) as members. No one publicly accused Mr. Green of being disloyal to the group. However, it does appear that there is one set of rules for some, and a different set for others. I close with this quote: “Loyalty is the highest virtue taught by abusers, and used as control tool,” Dr. Bill Tollefson. I stand by my vote.

Patricia Chase-Green
Former Mayor of the City of Georgetown