EMAILGATE

Sep 25, 2014 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Guyana now has its own Emailgate. This has created a crisis in public trust, one that must be addressed as a matter of urgency by the opposition parties in Guyana.
Leaked documents reveal a plot to destroy the Kaieteur News and to put its publisher away in jail for a long time. This is a most serious development and one that trumps the plans hatched in the 1960s by the CIA to kidnap Cheddi and Janet Jagan and exile them to Venezuela.
Kaieteur News has been under threat for a long time. This is nothing new. But if what is revealed in the leaked emails are to be believed, then every business in this country, every citizen of this dear land, is under threat.
Kaieteur News  has always taken steps to protect itself from the power of the State and from those who wish to destroy it because of what the newspaper  stands for and what it has been revealing about the governance of this country and the hijacking of the country’s economy by a small clique.
Not everything that this newspaper knows has been made public because this newspaper has to protect its staff from harm and victimization. But Kaieteur News knew long ago about the plans that were being hatched to destroy it and its publisher.
Those behind the plot against Kaieteur News were not fooling anyone. Their schemes were known because there are enough decent individuals in this country who, regardless of their political persuasion, do not like to see the innocent punished. And so they have always provided this newspaper with information about the conspiracies being hatched against it.
This newspaper, for example, knew from day one that video recording equipment was secreted by a member of the oligarchy in a building nearby Kaieteur News so as to monitor who was bringing information to this newspaper.
Kaieteur News knew that from day one that it was being monitored. It also knew when the monitoring stopped and it took steps to entertain those who were videoing the company. It also knew where the footage was going because persons who came to this newspaper were questioned about why they were visiting the newspaper.
Kaieteur News also knew that there was a plan hatched to use the pages of this newspaper to attack its publisher who had offered a free column to the ruling party. The paper learnt that there was a plan to use this column to attack Glenn Lall.
The emails recently released by this newspaper shows the depth to which those who wish to destroy this newspaper would go.
But it is not Kaieteur News alone that is under threat. It is all Guyanese. When information that should be privileged is illegally disseminated then we have reached a stage in this country where nothing is safe.
Every business in Guyana wants the information that is statutorily required to be submitted to the tax authorities to be kept confidential. No business in this country wants its competitors to know its turnover, its liabilities or the tax its pays. That information is privileged and the tax authorities are required to not make it available to unauthorized persons and entities.
The President himself does not have a right to individual taxpayers’ information. The President can only designate to which entity such general information should be made available to. This is only usually for purposes relating to the making of policy. In the making of policy, it may be necessary for example for taxes are to be waived for a sector and in so doing for  the government to estimate what taxes will be lost or forgone.
As such, the President may designate that the taxes paid for a particular sector be provided so as measure the impact of any concessions on overall taxes. But there is no known case of the President of any democratic country asking the tax authorities to provide anyone with information about what is the turnover, the liabilities and the taxes paid by individual players in a sector.
The emails leaked to this newspaper indicate that information about most of the newspapers in this country was provided to an external source, someone who is close to the principal of a competitor within the sector.
In recent times also commercial transactions of re-migrants have been revealed to the State-owned newspaper. This should never have been allowed. This is an intolerable situation which requires an independent investigation.
This is not just a question about professional ethics. There are professional associations which require professionals conduct themselves in a manner that does not bring the profession into disrepute. A person found breaching an oath of secrecy can be disqualified from any professional associations to which he or she belongs.
But more importantly, it is an offence under Section 4 the Income Tax Act of Guyana for there to be unauthorized release of information about taxpayers. This very section of the law that provides for such information to be privileged also creates an offense for the violation of secrecy. As such those guilty of such an offence may be prosecuted in a court of law.
The first Order of Business when the National Assembly reconvenes should be a motion or resolution calling for an investigation into Guyana’s Emailgate.

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