Corruption, now press freedom

Oct 26, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Now you can understand why some Caricom heads are so contemptuous of the seat of power in Georgetown. Look at the unflattering position Guyana occupies on the ladder of press freedom as architectured by the respected organization, “Reporters Without Borders.”

Before we discuss that embarrassment let us look at corruption. Transparency International (TI) gave us a bad rating on their corruption continuum.

The power-holders cried out saying that it was the organization’s perception not their research findings, as if they know how the group does it work. Secondly, we were told that TI listened to people who love to bad-mouth the government.

Now when international organizations bestow accolades on members of the government, they are gladly accepted. We don’t hear about perceptions and rumour-mongers.

Time Magazine classified President Jagdeo as one of the world’s Environment Preservation Heroes. No one knows if the magazine came here to make an assessment of Mr. Jagdeo. Did it? It did its research and came to that conclusion about Mr. Jagdeo.

In the same vein, TI must have done its investigation. The amusing thing I find about the Government’s condemnation of TI is that the organization’s finding on official corruption in Guyana is widely off the true target.

Tracking down the wealth of money-launderers is not easy, much less the gains politicians have accumulated for the time they have been in power. Recently, I stepped on a rented property where the owner was found to have been defrauding the GPL.

His meter was bypassed through an illegal fixture. GPL technicians moved in. The investigation was immediately halted. I felt sick in my stomach when I heard what happened.

The GPL will forever remain a demoralized public corporation when these perversities are stumbled upon by its staff. No wonder the ordinary technicians carry on their illegal hook-up for the poorer folks in south Georgetown.

They know wealthy citizens are cheating on GPL and only the poorer classes are being taken before the courts. While making my inquiries about this case, I found out that some powerful people are part owners of that rented building.

There are many more situations like that, but how would Transparency International get this information. It is virtually impossible for even the American Government to find proof of these types of corruption. In many instances, the properties are not in the names of the rightful owners.

I truly feel defeated that I cannot reveal the names of three persons who were allowed to cheat on GPL and yet be saved by their political connections and cannot identify this property.

But this I can say – corruption has gone out of control in this land. Transparency International is nowhere near the truth.

We come now to press freedom. Barbados, a somewhat conservative government throughout the ages, comes in the early twenties on the scale, as do the other big states in Caricom. Guyana is 88th. Look at the distance between Guyana and its Caricom partners. In reality it should be the opposite.

Guyana, having experienced the dramatic and traumatic loss of press freedom for almost two decades, should have been one of the countries in this world where press tolerance was overflowing. The very people in government today couldn’t get their views across in the state media in the seventies and eighties.

Look at how they behave today, so that “Reporters Without Borders” can put Guyana at 88th. The people in the seat of power today have no shame.

They will carry on with their authoritarian rule until something gives. But it is not them that suffer. It is the ordinary Guyanese when he/she travels in the region.

I made the point in an earlier column that the people of the Caribbean know that we are not a democratic state in the Caricom family. And they vent their anger on us by calling us names, mistreating us at their airports and ridiculing our country.

Look what Trinidad did! Our rice exporters can only sell their rice to Trinidad if the Trinidadian importers get a license from the state. This is a violation of the Caricom charter. They would not have done that to Jamaica or Barbados.

They can treat Guyana like this because they think we are a banana republic. How do you explain to Caricom citizens and Caricom politicians that we have one radio station? It may have three channels but it is one radio station that is owned by the state.

And this has been maintained for the sixteen years that the PPP has been in power, the very PPP that when it was in opposition denounced the PNC Government’s radio monopoly.

Nothing has changed since Burnham days. Guyana remains a Caribbean pariah and our people will continue to run away.

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