Dear Editor,
Your article “Constitutional Reform Commission suspends work until after elections” (S/N Sept. 9, 2025) should trouble every Guyanese. I am particularly disappointed because I saluted the appointment of former Chancellor Carl Singh to lead the process, despite the politicisation of the membership of the Commission with party persons and handpicked members of civil society. Probably the most inappropriate was then attorney-at-law Dr. Kim Kyte as the representative of women and Mr. Adrian Anamayah, as farmers’ representative.
The twenty-one-member Commission is supported by a full Secretariat and a big fat budget. Among the members are some of the country’s most respected legal minds – including Justice Singh, the Head of the Bar Association, the Attorney-General, Senior Counsel, prominent attorneys-at-law and hand-picked representatives of civil society. With such talent and authority, the people of Guyana are entitled to expect diligence and progress.
Instead, more than a year after its establishment, the Commission has little to show beyond reported orientation sessions and internal familiarisation exercises. To compound the situation, the members have decided to “suspend work until after the General and Regional Elections.” As if that is not absurd enough, the Commission appears to be in breach of article 19 A of the Constitution and the Constitution Reform Commission Act, No. 16 of 2022 which require the Commission to make periodic reports to the National Assembly.
The collective failure of the Commission is doubly shameful. The 1999 Commission was sworn in on January 22, 1999, and by July 17 of that year it delivered its 300-page report to the National Assembly having received and analysed scores of submissions – some running to several pages – consulted widely, engaged local and foreign experts.
That body, operating under greater constraints, delivered results. Today, many of its recommendations remain unfinished business. Therefore, this Commission was not required to begin from zero, or as they say, reinvent the wheel. Unlike the 1999 Commission, the current Commission, had a body of material and unfinished business on which it could build.
Worse, Guyanese are reminded that both major parties – which have nine direct representatives and several indirect representatives – promised constitutional reform in their manifestos of 2015, repeated the pledge in 2020, and again in 2025. To now preside over this spectacle of delay and inertia is to insult the intelligence of the people.
Editor, this Commission is acting like our politicians – treating constitutional reform as something that is optional. In fact, constitutional reform aims to strengthen democracy, protect rights, improve government effectiveness, and enhance legitimacy by updating outdated institutions.
As a citizen, I take the liberty to call on the Chairperson, as an immediate act, to direct the Secretariat to prepare the draft of its first periodic report to the National Assembly, in accordance with article 119 A of the Constitution. That report should also include its schedule of national consultations and a clear timetable for the delivery of its terms of reference in the form of a final report to the National Assembly no later than twelve months hence.
The ineptitude that has characterised the past ten years in almost every constitutional body but one, every parliamentary body, and every statutory body, must end. Chairperson Singh must make himself available to the media, report to the National Assembly and ensure that his Commission not only does not waste taxpayers’ money but deliver on this critical function which it undertook.