Citizens’ rights and Open Government

Oct 18, 2015 Features / Columnists, News

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By Lance Hinds
Amidst all the yelling and screaming in the dailies about whether or not ministers should get an increase in salaries, and even more noise about how this increase was going to be effected, there were two articles which also caught my attention and

triggered more than a passing interest.
The first one was about the Government plans to table a bill that seeks to amend Article 63 of Financial Institutions Act.  This amendment will allow financial institutions to disclose customer information to the Guyana Revenue Authority when it makes what is described as a ‘lawful request or demand for information’.
Further reading and general enquiries revealed that the primary reason was apparently to help the GRA as it investigates individuals and entities that are not, in biblical terms, “rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”.  There was related news about the State Assets Recovery Unit awaiting specific legislation to support their efforts in recovering presumably stolen state assets. I imagine this legislation will also have clauses requiring financial institutions to provide information upon official demand.
I must confess that my first thought after reading this was a humorous one. In my mind’s eye I saw citizens making even more deposits into the Cooperative Bank of Under-My-Mattress. Further thought about this however, caused my antennae to buzz with mild concern.
I understand that the Government’s efforts at law enforcement, compliance and assets recovery are ultimately supposed to be for the benefit of us all.  I am well aware that there is already sharing of customer information, especially as local institutions and countries seek to comply with global laws like the United States’ Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).
My fear, however, is that in the zealousness to investigate, prosecute and send to jail, we may inadvertently put pressure on the rights of citizens as regards the stewardship and protection of the information that they place in the hands of institutions. It is really time for a balanced, overarching framework that comprehensively addresses this issue as opposed to dealing with it in separate silos of individual legislation.
I am speaking specifically about data protection legislation.
A Data Protection Act would govern how citizens’ personal/private information would be used by businesses, government agencies and other organisations. Such legislation would be guided by a series of principles that would protect the interest of individuals whose private information is being utilized.
A useful guide for this would be the Data Protection Act in the United Kingdom. Under this act, eight principles are established in the interest of good practice and procedure. These principles define the lawfulness of the information that is being processed, the adequacy of the information provided, specific purposes for which the information is being used, the accuracy of the information being shared, rights of the citizens with regard to information sharing and the conditions for the sharing of private information outside the country’s jurisdiction.
It would mean that any other legislation that seeks as part of its mandate to collect and analyse information about our citizens would have to defer and be guided by the properties and principles of this proposed legislation. It would certainly give everyone comfort and reduces significantly the chance of overreach as we move more and more towards an information and knowledge-driven society.
The other piece of news that caught my attention is the visit of the Mexican Ambassador to the Prime Minister, to engage in discussions on the upcoming Global Open Government Partnership Summit in Mexico. Hosted by Mexico in late October, the summit will allow participants through workshops and plenary sessions to share experiences and examples about how openness can improve public services, drive economic growth and make governments more accountable.
The Open Government Partnership was launched in 2011 to provide a platform for reformers committed to making their respective governments more open, more accountable, and responsive to its citizens. In over 60 participating countries, government and civil society are working together to develop and implement open government reforms. It is expected that Guyana will participate in this summit. Nice.
Let us therefore get down to basics. Open government is defined as one in which high levels of transparency, mechanisms for public scrutiny, and government accountability are in place, either by legislation or at minimum general policy. Transparency is a core pillar of any open government, and means that citizens must be able to access government held information and be advised of government proceedings. In recent years, this concept has even expanded further to include the expectations of increased citizen participation and collaboration on government affairs through the use of information technology.
If the government is going to sign on to this level of governance, I hope they are conceptually aware of what that entails. This is a different type of high grass that we will be walking in. Over these many years I have always gotten the impression that when the authorities and subject agencies here give you information it is almost as if they are bestowing a favour upon your good self.
This mind you, is information that you are entitled to as a taxpayer. As a matter of fact it can be well argued that a lot of the corruption that exists has to do with the difficulty of getting information that is rightfully ours in the first instance. I also believe that over almost 50 years, governments here, like others in the developing world, preferred to have significant control over the information that is provided to the public. What, in my opinion, also does not help matters, is that from the public’s perspective, there is not yet a general appreciation of what information they have a right to access.  Again, we would be walking on very rare earth.
This will be of course a complex exercise. Formal mechanisms about the consistent access and distribution to all government information and proceedings will need to be reviewed and updated. The internet has now become almost ubiquitous, so we would need to develop a series of open data standards to facilitate structured and responsible electronic access.
This will more than likely be a long, bumpy ride. At the end of it all, however, it will be of tremendous benefit to the democratic evolution of our society.

(Lance Hinds is the President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He is also the Chief Executive of the BrainStreet Group, an Information Technology and Content Development Company.)

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