Govt. is not the only source of information in Guyana

Jun 07, 2009 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Contrary to Dr. Prem Misir’s erroneous belief that I have been making ‘wild and sweeping unsubstantiated allegations’ (June 4), or that I have ignored verifiable facts or circumvented data he presented, I have noted his ‘facts and figures’ just as I have noted the ‘facts and figures’ of Dr. Henry B. Jeffrey, which, by the way, were both instructive and revealing.
For my part, I have consistently argued and presented talking points that have been in the local media/public domain for a long time, so that his insistence on using the letter columns to promote his party’s propaganda should be seen for what it is.

For the spin doctor’s information, I certainly did not make wild and sweeping unsubstantiated allegations about corruption and misuse of funds by this Government in my previous letter, “President Jagdeo needs a viable vision beyond the IMF/WB,” (June 3), because I actually cited as my source the Auditor General’s last report for 2006, (“Promoting Good Governance, Transparency and Improved Public Accountability,”) which should have been presented in September 2007 but was not until July 2008.
One has to now wonder whether the 2007 report will be submitted next month in keeping with the precedent set last year.

And even though Speaker of the House, Mr. Ralph Ramkarran reportedly said upon receipt of the 2006 report that it was “an important facet in the thrust for public accountability and transparency,” and even though Government apologists love to brag that in the last 16 years since the PPP ‘restored democracy’ it also restored forensic auditing of Government institutions, the truth is, the Auditor General, Mr. Deodat Sharma, has been acting in this capacity for over two years, which may make him always feel his position is tenuous.
In addition, two of the reasons for the lateness of the 2006 report were 1) a shortage of staff and 2) difficulty in getting timely explanations from Government officials for financial discrepancies detected during forensic audits. If this Government was really serious about transparency and full accountability on public funds, it would have ensured the AG was confirmed in his post and his office was always fully staffed and adequately financed.

One of the promises of the Cheddi Jagan-led PPP on returning to power was to run a clean and lean government, so we expected to have the AG’s annual report submitted in a timely manner; nothing less would have sufficed.
But according to the spin doctor, “…over the last 15 years the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament scrutinizes the Auditor-General’s Report; all Accounting Officers have to provide explanations on queries to this Committee; a member of the Opposition always chairs the Public Accounts Committee.
And, over the last 15 years, the Auditor-General’s Report has not alluded to any cases of fraud. Mervin needs to substantiate his allegations with specifics.”

Is this guy really serious? Dr. Misir needs to peruse the AG’s 2006 report to be apprised of the glaring discrepancies that raised major red flags, but he may still find a way to spin its contents to the benefit of his Government.
The 2006 report found that the Contingencies Fund continued to be abused (unchanged from the 2005 report) because certain items arguably did not fall under unanticipated expenditure.
And if the OP can ignore the AG’s concerns, what can the public expect of managers of other Government offices? The AG also recommended strict adherence to the Procurement Act because he discovered there were major violations by ministries governing procurement and accountability rules.
The Ministry of Home Affairs, for example, received $11M in 2003 to buy guns and ammunitions, but when the AG checked, he found neither guns nor ammunitions and no one seemed to know where the money disappeared to.

Then there was the troubling Consolidated Fund! Both Mr. Sharma and his predecessor highlighted the failure to transfer lottery proceeds to the Consolidated Fund, as stipulated by law.
Between 1996 and 2006, for example, almost $3B in lottery proceeds should have gone into the Consolidated Fund, but the way the system was contrived it could easily have been abused by those with responsibility for accessing funds.
When two AGs can raise red flags on the Consolidated Fund it is enough for the public to question the motives of those responsible for this fund, and it probably explains why AFC co-chair, Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan, could have publicly questioned how millions of dollars that should have been in a fund under OP ended up in a private account at bank of Baroda.
And to our dismay, the President was the only one who spoke out on it afterwards and said he was ‘troubled’.

So, to Dr. Misir, who has unfettered access to all the statistics and data in Government and uses these to make his case for progress and development (the PPP and President’s way), I am not making ‘wild and sweeping unsubstantiated allegations’, but I am premising my contentions on what is already in the public domain.
What’s also in the public domain is that the AG’s office is constitutionally independent of the three major branches of Government so the AG does not report to the President and can launch special probes of any Government institution without the executive branch necessarily green-lighting such probes.
And that is why some observers are finding it disturbing that the President asked him to probe the Fidelity-Polar beer scam, but the President did not ask him to probe the CLICO (GY) scandal.
It is public knowledge that AG’s jurisdiction extends to bodies not owned but substantially funded by the Government and since the NIS – a Government-run institution – had hundreds of millions of dollars invested in CLICO (GY), Mr. Sharma had a constitutional responsibility to probe CLICO (GY), without the President’s approval.

And even though Government exploited its parliamentary majority to place the Office of the Insurance Commissioner and, by extension CLICO (GY), under Bank of Guyana supervision, Mr. Sharma still has the constitutional authority to conduct a probe, but will he be seen as going up against the might and wrath of the executive branch if he does?
One can recall Mr. Sharma’s predecessor, Mr. Anand Goolsarran, attempting to probe the dolphin scandal started by an adviser inside the Office of the President only to run into a brick wall.
He subsequently resigned and took up an overseas job with the UN, but that experience may explain why Mr. Sharma is still ‘acting AG’ as well as appearing reluctant to aggressively pursue probes his office has constitutional powers to deal with outside the influence or direction of the executive branch.

Meanwhile, infrastructure projects, like the Berbice Bridge and the Takutu Bridge – for which money was either arbitrarily taken from public funds or made available by loans that must be repaid – are welcome developments, assuming these projects are of sound quality and durable. But when Dr, Misir starts talking about “improving the administration of justice and improving internal security within Guyana through the Justice Sector Reform Strategy 2006-2010 and the Security Sector Reform Action Plan,” he needs to be stopped immediately.

The administration of justice in Guyana is in dire shape; perhaps borderline scandalous based on recent exchanges in the letters columns, and both internal security and security sector reform in Guyana are determined by partisan political considerations.
It’s either the Government’s way or no way! Stakeholders, meanwhile, are a matter of political convenience!
Finally, my allusion to foreign remittances to Guyana was intended only to show that, while the spin doctor (and others of his ilk) boasts of progress and development, remittances were actually a major factor in helping Guyanese survive Government’s failure to have the effects of its so-called progress and development trickle down to the people’s pocket books and wallets.

So rather than write about how much India, China, Mexico or Jamaica received in remittances in 2008 and excuse the continued migration of Guyanese as part of a global phenomenon, Dr. Misir should seriously consider that if we took away US$1B in remittances from Guyana’s economy over the last two years, we could well have been looking at either people-based street protests and demonstrations or an even greater number of Guyanese fleeing the land.
He should tell us why it is that, with all the progress and development he is using his stats to prove, West Indians aren’t flocking to Guyana or why overseas Guyanese aren’t returning in droves.
Since proof is always in the pudding, and he has no pudding then all he is left with is a spoof!
Emile Mervin

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