IS IT SCRUTINY YOUR CASE AGAINST SIGNING THE EPA, MR. PRESIDENT?

Oct 05, 2008 AFC Column, Features / Columnists

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By Khemraj Ramjattan
AFC Chairman

Guyana Government’s sudden hesitation to sign the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union is evidence that it does not appreciate the need to change gears to meet the current changing conditions of the world’s economic and trading realities. It smacks of a great naïvete which will lead to our isolation in a liberalized, globalised world.

The effects of this eleventh hour vacillation, when just under a year ago the Agreement was initialed by our Government, has caused most in the Caribbean to laugh at us.

Speaking to some senior diplomats and some concerned Guyanese recently, the message was clear that our President’s approach to this EPA is exactly like Minister Baksh’s approach to the AFC’s donation of toilet bowls to the PTA of Santa Rosa Mission School – an exhibition of a pit latrine mentality, pure and simple!

This Government which comes from a Party that espouses a centralised, Leninist approach must know that international capital has become increasingly footloose and will go to countries where it can make the highest rate of return.

And in doing so, such capital will cause nation-states to lower their regulatory standards – such as labour conditions and wages, environmental thresholds, taxation levels – so as to attract such capital.

We have literally lived this experience in Guyana. Just consider the cases of Barama and Omai.

To neutralize the effect of this kind of capital can only come from the creation and generation of capital from within Guyana itself – a sort of local patriotic capital.

However, that must mean the creation and generation of local capitalists. And capitalists, excepting for the favoured few who are given the “Sanata treatment”, are not a good thing for the longevity of the PPP/C.

Independence of pocket is created by the generation of wealth, and this leads generally to independence of mind.

And as we all know from the school of life, independence of mind inexorably leads to a questioning of the status quo.

This PPP/C Government prefers that no one questions its status quo. Notice how it is the only Government, out of 180, which cried foul when Transparency International reported that Guyana is one of the most corrupt countries in the world!

Notice, too, how independent minds, like Mr. Yesu Persaud, are put down as ignoramuses when they dare voice their concerns!

But this hard choice of wanting a continuation of the existing power structure, and yet desiring a greater wealth of the nation, is putting a great strain on our President and Government.

His option at the moment it seems is to continue the existing status quo. “Let the other 14 countries of the Caribbean go their way.

I will go mine. I will never allow my sovereignty to be trampled upon by the EPA and its regulatory framework,” is his determined stance.

The point is that Guyana must start meeting and dealing with a globalised world. Recoiling into our shell, like a turtle, will never create the condition for our evolution from our primitive economic state.

We are all affected now, or soon will be, by labour standards fixed by ILO, Environmental regulations agreed to in treaties, Consumer Health and Safety standards, international competition policy, intellectual property rights, and so many other extra-territorial issues, like all other countries.

Hence, the regulation of our economy like that of the global economy is intrinsically important. Markets rely on rules, customs, and institutions to function properly.

And so there is need that these rules and institutions work efficiently. To shun away from these rules will mean our demise.

The EPA is undoubtedly a reaching out towards establishing a trade and developmental partnership with probably the most economically powerful trading bloc in the world, and which will promote our gradual integration into the world economy.

My reading of this EPA, (and I will only refer to the Services section as distinct from the Goods section because it is this Services section that seems to be problematic for our President), informs me that regional integration will be promoted through the very significant assistance that will be given to cover our regional needs – a total of some 165 million Euros.

The services and investment provisions which call for reciprocity are tempered to cater for the gradual and effective market opening, consistent with WTO rules, so that disadvantaged economies such as Guyana can be taken into account.

And this through bilateral safeguards like a longer transition period of implementation of measures and protection of infant industries.

My reading of this section leaves me in no doubt that trading with Europe under an EPA regime will see the setting up of simplified, modernized customs procedures with a harmonised system for classification of products and transparency of customs legislation, together with clear disciplines on customs fees and valuations.

I am left with the happy understanding that on procurement issues, the EPA seeks to support a more efficient use of public budgets when authorities want to buy products or services on the market.

This is promoted through the setting up of certain transparency rules that procuring entities should respect when tendering.

Now tell me, would this not improve accountability of public spending and prospects for economic development, rather than the waste and corruption our Auditor General spoke about recently?

Moreover, to service and maintain, as it were, the terms and provisions of this EPA machinery, to oversee the implementation, and to monitor whether the individual parties are adhering to its letter and spirit, the said Agreement provides for the establishment of four institutions, the functions of each being specifically stated.

I am especially delighted to see the Parliamentary Committee which can request information from the top body – the Joint Ministerial Council – and which can make recommendations to this Council.

Especially welcome, too, is the Consultative Committee, a progressive innovation reflective of an approach of inclusiveness.

This Consultative Committee is meant to promote dialogue with civil society and seek out a broad participation of stakeholders.

What all this means is that the governance structures of the Agreement offer great promise of hope, far more than I see in our national polity.

With all this and lots more in the EPA, the President must sign up, or suffer the consequences of an unhappy isolation which will be a disaster tenfold worse than the floods of 2005!

Our President, too, must be direct and specific in pointing out which sections or which paragraphs or which words he finds offensive to his conscience, resulting in him not wanting to sign. He and his GINA propagandists have utterly failed in this regard.

They must not mischievously create monsters in the air so as to hoodwink Guyanese into believing that the EPA is wholly rotten; and to divert the public’s gaze from the true motive in not wanting to sign up, that is, an avoidance of the scrutiny which the Agreement’s regulatory framework demands.

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