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A response to Peeping Tom

Nov 19, 2012 Letters

Dear Editor,
We live in a dynamic world, so I share your columnist Peeping Tom’s view that institutions of state have to be reformed or retired in order to enhance or protect democracy, which exists for the singular purpose of serving the interests of the citizenry ( KN, November 13th).
However,  reforms or retirements must be driven by changes that make insitutions ineffectual or irrelevant in service of citizens, and not by any government’s self-serving disregard for selected institutions.
It is my belief that a careful reading of the Peeper’s column and an awareness of Guyana’s political milieu would lead to the unmistakable conclusion that the Peeper is using a reasonable view in a vain attempt to defend the dictatorial, untransparent, and unaccountable governance of successive PPP governments.
The Peeper boldly proclaims that the Office of the Ombudsman (OO), the Public Service Appellate Tribunal (PSAT), the Integrity Commmission (IC), the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC), and the still-to-be-established Public Procurement Commission (PPC) are not important or relevant to enhancing or protecting our democracy, but offers no tenable reasons other than damning assertions of  government’s disregard for these institutions and the understandable reactions of citizens consequent upon government’s disregard.
The plain, indisputable truth is that these institutions can severally and jointly check the dictatorial, untransparent, and unaccountable tendencies and practices of our governments— if properly funded, staffed, and implemented. But successive PPP governments have made sure that these institutions would never do the jobs they were legislated to do. And the Peeper has no problems offering government’s actions and the reactions of citizens as serious reasons to get rid of these institutions.
For example, the Peeper said that the Office of the Ombudsman should be retired because it receives few complaints and its decisions are disregarded by our governments. I suspect that the Peeper’s memory may have been clouded by the exuberance that overcame him as he wrote what he thought was a brilliant and veiled defense of the PPP’s dictatorial governance. Why else would the Peeper have concluded that an institution of democracy should be abolished because governments ignore its decisions?
What about strengthening the Ombudsman legislation to hold our governments accountable for ignoring decisions of the Ombudsman? If we take the Peeper’s reasoning to its logical conclusion, then we should also abolish our courts and our National Assembly because our governments have also refused to abide by their decisions. Has the Peeper forgotten about the court’s decision on radio stations, and the many unheeded laws such as the one calling for the establishment of a Public Procurement Commission?
I address the Peeper’s equally untenable view about the other institutions by pointing out that we still have problems with public service appointments, thus the need for the PSAT; with government officials and other public servants who move from rags to riches faster than the speed of light, thus the need for the IC; with racial marginalisation, thus the need for the ERC; and with economy-destroying corruption in the award of government contracts, thus the need for the PPC.
I will not here detain readers or take up space with the supporting statistics but urge the unaware and uninformed to Google any of our two objective daily newspapers (Kaieteur News and Stabroek News) or reports by Transparency International for evidence that will conclusively establish the need for these institutions.
I submit that not a penny is being wasted because of their presence, but that tens of millions of dollars are being wasted because of their ineffectual functioning or non-implementation. So I urge the government to properly implement them by providing proper staffing and adequate funding. And in the case of the PPC, implement it without any further delay.
Lionel Lowe

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