Stamping out corruption with a little help from Uncle Sam

Aug 06, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

On the 10th anniversary of his party’s ascension to power, Forbes Burnham announced that Guyana would henceforth pursue the creation of a socialist State. He also interestingly announced that the Congress of his party had agreed for a code of conduct for party leaders.
The new code of conduct would among other things prohibit party leaders from accepting gifts, holding stock in companies, serving as directors of companies, renting out property, engaging in business, employing more than ten persons, or using information gained through either the party or government for private benefit. It also called on party leaders to declare all assets.
The code was never instituted. It was also a sham to deflect from the concerns being expressed at the time about corruption within the then government. Burnham ought to however have considered that the key to building an effective socialist society was discipline and his code of conduct could have been pursued as a means to ensuring the sort of discipline, which would have been necessary to at least attempt to create his socialist utopia.
A great deal of water and a great deal of history has since passed under the bridge. We have once again returned to this age-old predicament of controlling corruption in small societies without developed institutional controls.
In recent weeks, this newspaper has made some stunning revelations about projects in Guyana.
The investigate work done by Adam Harris and his coterie of reporters has been a tribute to journalism. The underbelly of corruption has been exposed and it is time that the government takes some action in combating the perceptions of corruption within the administration.
This is not just a concern for Guyana. The international community and particularly the United States Embassy in Guyana must have an interest in this subject.
The US administration is keen on improving democracy in Guyana. And there is a reason for this apart from the significant investment that the ABC countries have made in Guyana since 1992.
The larger and more important US interests in Guyana can only be secured if there is a reduction in corruption within government, for corruption has a corrosive influence on the State and can make it vulnerable to penetration by forces that are detrimental to US national security interests.
While, for example, all the predominant focus in the ongoing trial of Robert Simels has been over the sale of sensitive equipment, one should not miss an important revelation, reported in Tuesday’s edition of the Kaieteur News, about a possible Iranian influence in Guyana. ‘
This brings back a comment made by one of Roger Khan’s local lawyers that he had advised Khan to bargain with the US authorities by telling them what he knew about this Iranian connection.
When institutional controls are weak- and the development of these controls do not happen overnight- the State, especially a State pursuing a liberal economic and political ideology, as presently the case, becomes vulnerable to corrupting influences including those of a financial and political nature.
This is why corruption by persons in the employ of the government must be taken extremely seriously even by foreign powers because such corruption can undermine the security interests of these foreign nations.
One US President had made it clear that he would not tolerate officials from foreign countries spending their corrupt earnings in his country be it on Biscayne Avenue or in satisfying medical bills in hospitals within the US.
Visa diplomacy can be an effective weapon against corrupt government officials and to arrest the culture of runaway corruption within governments.
What Burnham failed to do, the future leaders of the PPP must do. There must be a code of conduct, which would prevent government officials from dabbling in property, from holding stocks and shares in businesses and from generally benefiting financially from being servants of the State.
A person seeking public office should commit to a code of conduct that he or she will leave much poorer than when they took office.
They should see public service as an opportunity to deny them material and financial gain, rather than a means to enrich themselves and the embassies in Guyana should in strengthening democracy ensure that they pull the visas of persons who engage in stealing from the government.

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Stamping out corruption with a little help from Uncle Sam

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