TIGI: This country is drifting and must be saved

Feb 14, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – I read a letter in the press in the waning hours of 2021, published by Transparency International – Guyana Inc. (TIGI). When you read it, you just feel that this country is drifting into deeper chasms of human failings and as such, there needs to be moral courage to stop this direction.
The letter from TIGI was signed by four persons. The president, Frederick Collins, I have never met or seen. All I know about Mr. Collins is from debates on email strings where, he and other people debated issues of African culture. He appears to me to be someone interested in the affairs of African people.
I don’t know who Veda Ram and Darshanand Khusial are. I know the fourth signature very well – Catholic priest, Compton Meerabux. Father Meerabux knew my mother-in-law very well. He visited her supermarket in Wortmanville periodically to collect stuff sent by a mutual friend for the church. He once had brunch with her and my family at home in Turkeyen before she passed away.
I know Father Meerabux and I can say, without fear of contradiction, he would not agree or support but in fact condemn what took place during the long election drama from March to July last year. I have not seen any publication in the press by Collins, Ram and Khusial on the sordid dimensions that canopied those five months.
Now I may be wrong. So I would be happy to be pointed to those emanations. In the world of social media, people say unlimited things on unlimited topics but I would not know since I don’t participate in social media. The perfect example is the running mate of Mark Benschop in the 2015 general election. Her name is Dianne Madray. I was asking about her position on the election and was told she was quite condemnatory of what took place. So I would be happy to read what Collins, Ram and Khusial had to say.
The letter that appeared last week by these four persons listed three types of corruption – political, judicial and educational. Then it stated the forms of corruption – bribery, favouritism, extortion. It went on to call on Guyanese to speak out against corruption. To avoid libel I will use academic language to condemn their publication.
One is poor in one’s understanding of what corruption means if one does not understand how to deconstruct words. The most internecine form of corruption is to deny citizens their right to choose the government of their choice. When the general election of a country lacks transparency and free and fair processes, then the government that seizes illegal power is bound to enslave itself to the culture of corruptibility.
Many reasons explain this. Here is one of the main ones. There is no system of accountability because the unelected leaders are not answerable to watchdog bodies. I have always argued that if we did not have rigged election from 1968 in Guyana, the world may not have seen the activism of a revolutionary scholar named Walter Rodney.
The 1973 election was rigged and Forbes Burnham once again stole power. The next year, Walter Rodney was denied a teaching job at UG. The PPP would have won the election and would have employed Rodney at UG because at the time Cheddi Jagan and Rodney knew each other closely.
If a government is not accountable to legal institutions that can scrutinise its output, corruption is inevitable. Simply put – unelected power and corruption are intricately related. Nowhere in their letter did the four signatories touch on the frightening implications of unelected leaders and the inevitability of corruption.
In one section of their letter, there is a sub-heading – “how can you help fight corruption.” You help fight corruption by speaking out against political leaders that steal elections and install themselves. This is one of several columns I have done in which I have called out TIGI for not speaking out against the horror show that this country saw for five consecutive months in 2020.
The TIGI has to be a frightening entity to be associated with, when it has the word, “transparency” in its name but failed to inform Guyana that what Region 4 Returning Officer for the election in 2020 was doing from March 3, 2020 had not an ounce of transparency.
I am currently composing a column in which I will pose the question to the leadership of the PPP, not the government of Guyana, if it cannot liaison with Transparency International in Germany to disassociate itself from TIGI. I urge young Guyanese to look elsewhere for intellectual guidance other than TIGI. This is a shameless organisation that is not worth being given any recognition by any Guyanese who love their country.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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