“Idiotic Arguments”: AG Nandlall Defends Ouster of All 10 REOs, Cites End of Electoral Tenure

By Antonio Dey | HGP Nightly News|

GEORGETOWN, GUYANA – Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Mohabir Anil Nandlall, SC, has fiercely rejected political pushback from the opposition benches regarding the wholesale removal of the country’s ten Regional Executive Officers (REOs).

Speaking on his weekly live television programme, Issues in the News, Nandlall asserted that much of the public commentary surrounding the sudden administrative shake-up has completely ignored the fundamental legal architecture of the positions. He flatly denied that the removals constituted a breach of labor rights, arguing that REOs are political, executive appointees rather than career public servants with guaranteed security of tenure.

The Legal Evolution of the REO Post

The Attorney General mapped out the statutory framework governing regional administration, tracing the origin of the posts back to the late Burnham era.

Nandlall explained that the office of the Regional Executive Officer was explicitly created under the Local Democratic Organs Act of 1980—the landmark piece of legislation that legally carved Guyana into its current ten administrative regions. Under this specific statute, REOs are appointed directly by the Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, acting as the chief accounting and executive authorities embedded within Regional Democratic Councils (RDCs).

Because of this statutory design, Nandlall heavily castigated opposition lawyers and politicians for attempting to apply standard Public Service Commission (PSC) security frameworks to executive assignments.

“These are idiotic arguments; they simply do not make legal sense,” the Attorney General declared. “If the opposition politicians have nothing of substance to say, there is absolutely nothing wrong with being quiet. But do not contaminate the public domain with falsehoods.”

The Expiration of an Electoral Cycle

Nandlall pushed back against narratives framing the removals as a sudden, vindictive political purge. He clarified that the ten outgoing officers had completed a clearly defined operational lifecycle linked to national democratic intervals.

“Each of these ten officers who were removed were appointed as a block in 2020,” Nandlall pointed out. “They ran an entire electoral cycle; they ran an electoral tenure.”

The Attorney General maintained that it is standard constitutional practice globally for an incoming or evolving executive government to rotate, replace, or appoint new administrative chiefs at the end of a full electoral term to align regional execution with central cabinet policy.

Exposing Conflicting Opposition Narratives

Turning his attention to the political messaging of the opposition, the AG highlighted massive rhetorical contradictions within their camp, claiming they are grasping at straws to manufacture a controversy.

Nandlall mocked the split narratives being peddled simultaneously by commentators from the same opposition coalition:

• The Corruption Narrative: One faction of the opposition publicly claimed the REOs were axed by the state due to localized financial mismanagement and internal audit failures.
• The Martyr Narrative: Concurrently, another faction from the exact same political umbrella argued that the REOs were victimized and fired precisely because they refused to execute corrupt instructions handed down by central government ministers.

Nandlall argued that these conflicting positions prove the opposition is engaging in political theater rather than sound legal analysis. He reaffirmed that since REOs are executive appointees without permanent civil service protection, the Minister of Local Government reserves the absolute statutory right to replace them at discretion to ensure efficient governance across all ten administrative tiers.

The Ministry of Local Government is expected to announce the newly appointed REO lineup later this week as the regional councils transition into the new legislative cycle.