It’s absolutely priority for a Freedom of Information Act to be put in place

Dec 21, 2009 Letters

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Dear Editor,

Guyana has some very talented journalists without a doubt. The dilemma is that much of the valuable resources seem to be squandered away on never ending battles on competing, overworked and tired ideologies.

Guyana is a vast country with tremendous potentials and with an abundance of natural resources, which could serve the aspirations of its people many times over. However, the pressing issues concerning Guyana’s natural resources, hardly seems to generate any heated debate or to attract much attention.

This responsibility is left with outside agencies and foreign conglomerates, which they have exploited with vulgarity over the decades, and they wreaked untold destruction and pollution in their wake to extract riches from gold and lumber.

Many of these conglomerates were brought into the country during a dictatorship era. They are still maintaining their grips on the country and relentlessly bleeding the country for its natural resources.

The Guyana Government is rubbing its hands with glee from all this. The more the infighting the less attention will be focused on them. Success is always measured against a dictatorship baseline, which has ended 17 years ago, and giving the Government wide latitudes to crow about miniscule achievements, including begrudging press freedoms. Democracy and dictatorship are poles apart, but this makes little difference to those in power, who are unwilling to grasp the difference.

Under a democracy, government is accountable to its people. In Guyana this seems to be the other way round. In pursuit of massive profits at the expense of the people, the foreign conglomerates are able to pressurize the weak and subservient governments to act as their puppets. By by-passing the mandate of a democratic electorate the multi-nationals are usurping powers and imposing a government by stealth.

The political writer, Janine Wedel has been examining the powers that pressure groups can exercise over governments in the developed world. The claim is that these pressure groups have become the new ‘shadow elite’ over democratic governments and to dictate policies in pursuit of their own objectives.

The IDB has imposed transparency and accountability in their recent spate of loans to governments.

However, this is not what the Guyana Government would like to hear. Without a Freedom of Information Act in place however, they know that they can get away with it. They cannot be forced to deliver on transparency let alone on accountability and accuracy.

They will therefore resist attempts by the electorate to get a Freedom of Information Act to pass. Apart from exposing their inherent weaknesses, such an Act will allow greater public scrutiny over the conglomerates that are able to wield control with impunity over politicians and government.

The current LCDS (Low Carbon Development Strategy) being developed by the Guyana Government has occupied the President’s undivided attention, regardless of the lapses in security and policing, which is left dumped in the back seat. His aim is to meet with the paper conditions set out in a MOU with the Norwegians and to earn vast sums from carbon offsets. A huge administrative headquarters in Georgetown will be needed for this purpose.

Georgetown will become a hub of highly-paid, foreign consultants on site, and reporting back to their senior executives in outside consultancy firms. These agencies will dictate how government policies should run.

The Government’s record on transparency and accountability is seriously lacking as Transparency International has indicated. This will come in conflict with the MOU where transparency, accountability and accuracy as key requirements. It remains to be seen whether this fundamental public rights will yet again be compromised.

If the income from the carbon deal will be swallowed up in vastly inflated fees to foreign consultants, at the behest of the Government and it partners, then this should become public knowledge at the very inception and without any cover-ups. Past experiences should provide lessons that must be avoided like a plague, and not be repeated over and over again.

It has become absolutely priority for a Freedom of Information Act to be put in place without delay. This is an essential piece of legislation for any decent democracy, especially where corruption is rife. This fundamental right should not be left in the hands of Government with a penchant for cover-ups.

This Act would provide the investigative journalists with a valuable tool to explore new horizons and hidden, shady territories as opposed to defending tired and overworked ideologies.

Mac Mahase

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