Region Five in crisis again

– REO not meeting chairman following rift over excavator

There is another crisis at the local government level in Region Five (Mahaica/ Berbice) as Regional Executive Officer (REO) Ovid Morrison refuses to meet with Regional Chairman Vickchand Ramphal, the latter official said.

“The situation here in the region is that the REO is just not willing to meet with me,” Ramphal told Stabroek News.

“I have indicated to him that there are matters that we need to sit down and discuss and he refused. This situation is frustrating to me and it is not one that would do well for the region and its people,” he further added.

Having exhausted attempts at “offering the olive branch” to Morrison, Ramphal said, he will discuss with the councillors whether they should solicit external help, namely Minister of Communities Ronald Bulkan, to help bring the two sides together.

Ramphal explained that, through consultation with residents of the region, he has put together a list of local government issues affecting the ten Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDCs) in his region to discuss with his REO, so that they could collectively decide and plan on the order in which they would be dealt with. That ‘to do’ list, he said, includes the bombardment of complaints received from rice farms of the region on an increased land lease they have to now pay, drainage matters, getting funds for the region and finding out why a nurse was abruptly transferred among others.

He pointed out that residents of Region Five are worried about the pending rains given that this is the May/June rainy season and they are complaining to their respective councillors that they are not seeing enough drainage works being done.

‘Frustration’

Ramphal charges that every time he tries to engage Morrison, to ask that they meet, he is met with hostility and downright refusal.

“We have to look into the interest of the people of the region, and get on with the work. Look, the May/June rains are here, I have been trying to get REO to let us talk about what we will do and so on and like I cannot even explain my frustration to you,” Ramphal lamented.

“I called REO this week again and he told me that before he says anything to me I have to apologize to him and after that I must put whatever things I want us to discuss in writing and send it to him. An apology I can give but for what? I have not disrespected him or anything,” he added.

Ramphal said there were complaints that a National Drainage and Irrigation Authority excavator was being used at an area in the region and he had no idea who gave the go ahead for it. He said he told Morrison they should visit the area to see what the works were, but that Morrison told him he checked and it was nothing. He pointed out that on the day of the statutory meeting, the last Thursday in the month of March, he heard that the excavator was still at the site and told Morrison that they should go, given that all the councillors were present.

According to Ramphal, Morrison then accused him of insinuating that he was not telling the truth and demanded that he apologize. He said he explained that if they went and it was proven to be not true, he would apologize, but Morrison said he was leaving the meeting and that he would not be disrespected.

At this point, he said, he uttered the words, “well then you are free to go” and Morrison became more infuriated. Councillors from the APNU+AFC coalition joined Morrison in the walkout.

Their act is seen by Ramphal as calculated. “The APNU councillors are joining up with him it seems to me, because one Abel Seetaram even went as far as to write a letter to say I must apologize to the REO. They need to put political affiliation aside and let us deal with the matters of our region. It was what local government elections were about, funny enough it was the local government elections that the very government he represents wanted and now watch,” Ramphal asserted.

‘Repeat’

Ramphal pointed to the acrimonious relationship he once had with now resigned councillor Carol Joseph saying it had taken a toll on him mentally and he does not want a “repeat”, now with Morrison. The statutory meetings of the RDC had been disrupted for over half of the 2016 period by APNU+AFC councillors, notably Joseph, over what they saw as an insult to President David Granger by Ramphal, who was absent when the head of state was present for an activity in the region.

Ramphal, who had been called on repeatedly by the APNU+AFC councillors to apologize, had maintained that he did not intend to slight the President and had not been invited to the activity. He had urged the President to “intervene decisively” to bring an end to the disruption of the statutory meetings, which he said has obstructed the delivery of services to the people of the region.

Granger had done so, and at an emancipation activity last August, he called on

both sides to “let bygones be bygones”. Ramphal and Joseph seemed to have buried the hatchet until recently when Nurse Sherlyn Marks, who was attached to the Fort Wellington Hospital, complained that Joseph was using her office to access prescription pain medications.

Following the reports, Joseph resigned but simultaneously came the abrupt transfer, authorized by Morrison, of Nurse Marks from the Fort Wellington Hospital to a village clinic.

The nurse had said that Joseph had threatened that she would ensure she was transferred and she believed it was Joseph’s influence on Morrison that initiated her transfer.

The matter of Nurse Marks’s transfer and seeming victimization is one issue that Ramphal said he has on his agenda to discuss with Morrison as he is worried that it might scare other persons from speaking out if they witnessed abuse of power by any regional official, including himself.

“As chairman of the region and given that her transfer was executed by the REO, I want to have a discussion on the reasons because this is a nurse who never requested a transfer. How it happened too seemed as if she was indeed being victimized,” Ramphal said. “What are we saying to persons who would want to complain of abuse of power? It goes for me too because I did not take this job for anyone to be afraid of me.”

For now, he hopes that having gone public to expose the standstill in his region would not only see Morrison change his mind, but other officials intervene and talk with the REO to also “let bygones be bygones” and move the region forward.

“I hope that good sense would prevail and we would work together to put systems in place as a council. The ten NDCs all have constituents who are looking to us to lead by example. I think if we have better cooperation we can get more done,” he said.

“If it comes down to it, and how it looks now it seems it is worse, I will have to ask Minister Bulkan to intervene, the same way the President did, and have a sit down with us so that good sense prevails. It is all I want… This is so frustrating. I want them to know I am willing to work, I am always willing to work and cannot take this coldness.”