PPP Rosignol Neighbourhood Councillors withdraw resignation

Last Updated on Tuesday, 9 March 2021, 17:42 by Denis Chabrol

The six councillors of the Rosignol Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) on Tuesday withdrew their resignation, after a meeting with the General Secretary of their People’s Progressive Party, Bharrat Jagdeo.

No details were provided about their disagreement in the joint statement that they issued after the meeting. They only described their disagreement as “a particular issue in the NDC.”

Opposition A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) councillors have said that the PPP Councillors were annoyed at the manner in which Local Government Minister Nigel Dharamlall had been dictating that they remove vendors from the Rosignol Stelling Road.

But Mr. Dharamlall did not respond to a question about whether his attitude had anything to do with their resignations. Instead, he said “I do not respond to anonymous chats”, although it was he who had also sent the joint statement by that very means to this media house and had previously answered media queries on other issues.

The official reason that had been given by several of the councillors included “many unsettled issues”, being “frustrated and disappointed” and a “lack of cooperation from fellow councillors.”

At the same time, they sought to assure that their now rescinded resignation had nothing to do with their support for the PPP. They accused the opposition APNU+AFC of “falsely” portraying their resignation as a loss of confidence in the PPPC.

The councillors told the meeting chaired by Mr. Jagdeo that “we expressed at that meeting our desire to accelerate development in our NDC and sought the assistance of the party and government to support this goal.” They said the community had suffered from neglect, discrimination and a lack of accountability under the then APN+AFC coalition that governed Guyana from 2015 to 2020.