Accountability: The key to effective citizenship

Jun 23, 2015 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
A range of laws and mechanisms are being considered for fast-track implementation to address the manifold forms of corruption which flourished over the past decade.  However, once we get past the initial revulsion at the extent of corruption, addressing its causes starts to look more complex. In particular, the simplistic division of the society into beneficiaries of corruption and the rest of us can be misleading.
While everyone is incensed by ‘corruption’, the only common agreement is that it is generated by ‘politics’. Comfortably condemning ‘politics’, moreover, is reinforced by a growing realization that the enormous sums lost to the Guyana treasury through corrupt practices were more than adequate to dramatically raise, for example, chronically low standards of health and education.
While the extent and gravity of corrupt practices cannot and should not be denied, reducing the problem to one of elected officials alone lets the rest of us off the uncomfortable hook of how much we went along with what we now condemn.
A significant number of the same Guyanese seeing it as a necessary evil have, at one time or another, paid bribes to public officials to obtain house-lots, driving licences, import licences, contracts, scholarships, or to avoid duties on imported goods.  On a lesser scale, a larger number of us have taken advantage of influence or well-placed friends to jump the queue, accelerate a process, or avoid some inconvenience in relation to public services.
At another level, tolerance for practices we hardly consider corrupt such as discriminating in favour of friends, family or people of similar ethnic backgrounds, is a real hindrance to rooting out corruption.  Such tolerance is justified, by and large, by exaggerating the repressive nature of the government.
Rather than by terror, it is closer to the truth that Guyanese society has become debased due to distraction with trivia, a technique described as follows by Professor Bernard Crick: “If people see themselves purely as consumers they will lose all real control of government. Governments will then rule by bread and circuses, even if not by force; and torrents of trivial alternatives will make arbitrary and often meaningless choice pass for effective freedom.”
In Guyanese terms, this equates, for example, to encouraging twenty-four hour TV cycles of ‘Hollywood, Bollywood and Nollywood’ plus MTV videos, interspersed with non-stop advertising of fetes and concerts.
Few civic organizations, however well-intentioned, managed to function without absorption into either this debased culture or the more select world of the financiers, businessmen and bent politicians obsessed by personal accumulation. To avoid either of these outcomes, the majority of professional, religious, trade union, NGO bodies and the disciplined services allowed themselves to be rendered anonymous for a decade or more.
Against this background the challenge of eliminating corruption – financial, political and social – is one of restoring vigorous engagement of civil society in order to rehabilitate the influence of public interest groups and ordinary people. This process requires identifying participatory processes and strategies which stimulate the energies and active involvement of all sectors of civil society.
A document entitled “Forward-Looking Strategies”, presented to the contesting parties by a coalition of civic and religious organizations and circulated widely as a pamphlet prior to elections, was a first step aimed at re-vitalizing civic involvement in public life in the post-election era.
“Forward-Looking Strategies identifies ‘accountability’ as the over-arching guiding principle for rejuvenating civic engagement with public policy and public life. Financial, political and environmental accountability were identified as priority areas for attention. Accountability must be operationalized at all levels of public life, from the simplest community-based activity to Parliamentary and Ministerial performance. Whistle-blower laws and other imaginative techniques for monitoring public officials are needed.
None of this civic rejuvenation detracts from the importance of the anti-corruption drive, but serves to locate that process within the larger framework of governance in which there is a role for all citizens.
However, it is sobering to remind ourselves that without the vigilance of alert citizens, political processes, no matter how wisely constructed, will not remain unblemished. Political and legal systems can never be so flawless as to discount the need for accountability to citizens.
Executive Committee
Guyana Human Rights Association

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