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JAIL THEM QUICKLY!

Sep 30, 2013 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Martin Carter once wrote a collection of poems which he entitled “Jail me quickly”. Many Guyanese are now shouting, ‘Jail them quickly” in relation to those persons who are guilty of wrongdoing under the guise of public-private partnerships.
Public-private partnerships (PPP) have unfortunately in Guyana become a vehicle for the movement of state resources and assets to private companies and private individuals many of whom are cronies of a section of the ruling elite.
Using PPP to enrich friends and cronies is not what these partnerships were intended to achieve and represents a criminalizing of their functions.
The International Financial Corporation of the World Bank notes three important functions of PPP. The first of these is to “improve the delivery of services and the operations of infrastructure by tapping into the expertise and efficiency of the Private Sector.” Secondly, it is “to mobilize private capital to speed up the delivery of infrastructure.”
Thirdly, it is intended to ensure more efficient use of resources by improving the identification of risks and their allocation while maintaining affordable tariffs. Nowhere in the numerous discussions about PPP is there any mention that PPP should be a mechanism to move resources from the Public Sector to the Private Sector.
The World Bank itself advises that one of the first questions that need to be asked before moving towards a PPP for any project is whether it is necessary for such an arrangement.
Was it necessary, for example, for there to be a PPP for the Berbice River Bridge? After all, the government put up 90% of the funds and the Private Sector a mere 10%. The government could have more than afforded the extra 10%.
But as is now being made public, certain entities were engaged as private investors in this project to the tune of 10% of the total investment. They were handed total control of the Board.  In addition, the government, which took public funds to build the bridge, turned around and waived all the dividends due to the government on this investment. This is like saying to the 10% shareholders, “you take all the profits.” This is not just recklessness.
Yesterday, there was a report in the newspaper about an Accounts Clerk at a government corporation who was said to have siphoned off about three million dollars of the corporation’s funds.
The Clerk is said to be under investigation and is likely to either be charged or forced to pay back the money or both.  This clerk is being accused of embezzlement of public funds.
But how different is what that clerk is accused of doing from those who take state assets and transfer it to the Private Sector through waivers of dividends and through forfeiting of control of assets which are 90% owned by the State? How different is that?
Now consider this: You are building a hotel under a PPP arrangement. You go ahead and commence construction of the hotel even though there is no financial closure on the financing of the hotel. You spend four billion dollars of public resources and still there is no financial closure. And then having gone ahead and expended so much money, you turn around and indicate that you will grant to a private investor, which will invest 13% of the overall investment, a 67% shareholding.
That is you are granting to this investor a controlling interest. If the hotel, as anticipated goes bust, what happens is that the four billion dollars will not be recovered in a forced sale and the 8% investor, whose identity is being kept a closely guarded secret, will walk away with four billion dollars in taxpayers’ assets. What do you call that!
Is that Public Private Partnership or is it Public to Private Pick-Pocketing?
In any other part of the world, the government who undertook such scandalous deals would have had to resign forthwith. Yet the present administration has the brazenness to try to defend this arrangement as catalyzing development.
There is a need for forensic investigators to be called in immediately to probe this fiasco that has taken place in relation to Public Private Partnerships. When the investigation is completed, those indicted of wrongdoing should be jailed and jailed quickly.

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