Only an adequately qualified person should be selected to head GFC

Jan 04, 2020 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

I refer to Kaieteur News article of Saturday Dec 28th 2019 on the subject that GFC Commissioner departs after 21 yrs. Indeed James Singh served the GFC and sector well. Moving on, there has been a lot of speculation on who will be the next Commissioner. Persons have been reliably informed that a particular individual who is one of the Deputy Commissioner is being favoured. One must know this post is a serious post and the individual needs certain credentials both academic, integrity, and experience which I firmly believe from information gathered, the favoured candidate does not have.
Ideally, if the Board or Government supports transparency then this post should be advertised and a fair and transparent procurement process carried out. Single handedly choosing someone for the post is an abuse of the process and good governance.
The Ministry, PMO and OCC were in high praise recently on how well the GFC and forest sector performed and noted that it was integral in the whole Climate programme with Norway and it was through the good work and governance of the GFC that the Government was able to receive significant sums from Norway; the last tranche being $9B. So the GFC now needs to match what it has said with its action moving forward.
Secondly and from a legal standpoint, the Guyana Forestry Commission Act 2007 Section 10 Subsection 4 states, “No person shall be appointed Commissioner without the approval of the Minister.”
With Parliament having been dissolved on Dec 30 or shortly and the Government being in a caretaker mode the Subject Minister or as now the former Minister does not have the power to give approval for this appointment in accordance with the Act. Any attempt to do this will be illegal and in breach of the Act and will be deemed null and void. I do hope the former Minister, a lawyer, will do the right thing.
Thirdly, in the recent past, there has been a flurry of media coverage on alleged and massive corruption with key departments of forest monitoring and management within the GFC. It would be remiss of the Board or Minister to simply ignore these allegation/information and evidence before making an appointment. To remind the public below is a summary of the serious nature of the mismanagement reported and for the powers be to take care note:

Evidence suggests spread corruption and collusion within GFC’s forest monitoring unit

Guyana Forestry Commission must be investigated

I believe these deliberate fixing of the system can be considered fraudulent and/or criminal

With regards,
E. Smith

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