Instituting an act in parliament and reneging on it is corruption

Jul 26, 2018 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
SARA’s failure to recover a single dime after one year after its establishment is a reflection of the lack of vision of the leadership of the coalition and their willingness to waste millions of taxpayers’ dollars to provide patronage to its elite clan.
SARA is a hoax, in the pursuit of needless or lost causes. Like SARA, we have seen over a dozen COIs being orchestrated by the president. Have these COIs brought justice to the aggrieved, improved governance structures or improve the lives of any Guyanese? I think not. Most of them had meaningless terms of reference and like SARA, they contributed to wastage of hundreds of millions from the treasury. The public should view these acts of the coalition as a form of corruption.
Deputy Director Aubrey Heath-Retemyer said that SARA’s budget for 2018 is 200 million, signaling a cut of over 30% from 2017. Therefore, SARA received some 260 million in 2017, that added to 2018 figures, provides a grand total of 460 million. What has SARA recovered so far? Nothing! SARA’s lack of productivity constitutes a form of legalized theft from the state. Lo and behold! Retemyer is complaining of the lack of funds which had stymied SARA from using “international companies which are versed in asset recovery”.
Despite claiming that some 27 to 35 billion were siphoned off each year by the PPP, Retemyer and Clive Thomas have come up empty-handed one year after. Rather than acknowledge SARA’s failure, Retemyer’s excuse is “The government needs to be prepared to invest significant quantities of cash upfront because of the extent of the searching and investigation that would be required to locate state assets. When people steal these assets, they don’t have them lying round. They change form and even jurisdictions and in that sense, government should make a conscious effort to try and understand the budgeting needed to track these assets funds.”
His words! “When people steal these assets, they don’t have them lying round. They change form and even jurisdictions”. Retemyer wants government to invest more money to chase after “ghosts”. The audacity of some people can be amazing! If the stench of the corruption committed by the PPP is too stale for SARA and SOCU to follow, they could prove their mettle or try to show some capability by descending on something as recent as Durban Park, where a few millions shy of a billion could not be fully accounted for. That would give the public the impetus to drop the stigma of “witch hunting” from SARA and SOCU.
While Retemyer is clamoring for more funds for SARA , a new ultra violet light has been shone on SARA in an attempt to cleanse it of its director and deputy director by Anil Nandlall. Nandlall said that “the SARA act provides very clearly that the Director and Deputy Director of the agency shall be appointed through a parliamentary process”. He(Nandlall) said that “a transition provision in the Act allowed the Director who operated in the agency before the Act came into force”, that has “long expired”. Nandlall added that, “Neither (Retemyer or Thomas) was appointed by the National Assembly process mandated by the Act. Therefore, Mr. Retemyer and Dr. Thomas are unlawfully holding offices and receiving public monies as remuneration.” I believe Nandlall. When would these feathered birds be plucked? The coalition by instituting an act in parliament and reneging on it is guilty of corruption.
When will this crime and unlawful conduct be investigated by SOCU? Perhaps never! This scenario begs a question. How independent can any constitutional commission be, when the head of that commission is selected or appointed by the President – the leader of the Governing political party? This is the modus operandi of all the constitutional commissions and given the inseparability of Government and state in our so-called democracy, all heads of commissions would naturally be subjective to their boss (the president). Who pays the piper calls the tune!
This kind of subjectivity is taken for granted and so entrenched in the Guyanese psyche that we seem to lack the ability to construe the term “conflict of interest”. Hence we have been taught that our constitution is good by politicians on both sides (PPP and the Coalition) all for their selfish aggrandizement. This is the fundamental reason for a continuous legacy of corruption by successive regimes.
Having a vote in parliament to elect heads of constitutional commissions, like the select committee in the US House of Representatives, will not change anything because our so-called parliamentary representatives are the answer for a mathematical calculation done by GECOM at the end of every national election – totally incapable of representing anyone but the beasts (political parties) that give them power – the ruling party will always have its choice accepted on account of having more heads in parliament.
Ours is a democracy where we do not know or have any connection to who represents us in parliament. We vote blindly for the inanimate (party) not people. We need to go back to a constituency base, where we vote for people to represent us. Constituency elections should be about people competing to represent their constituency in parliament – private citizens must be allowed to run against the politically-aligned candidates.
Presidential elections should be about the election of a president – private individuals must be allowed to compete against the political candidates too. Only then will we have true parliamentary representation. Only then will we have sound, visionary leadership in the presidency. Only then can we have separation of Government from state. Only then can we dream of stopping the scourge of corruption.
Rudolph Singh

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