The more you see, the less you know

Mar 01, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News – Second Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo is getting tangled up with his concepts. Last December, he mixed up transparency with political accountability, and during the recent International Energy Conference, there was a difficulty in making clear a difference between economic inclusion and sustainability.
Last December, Jagdeo was quoted as saying that, “the ultimate act of transparency is fulfilling your promises as a political party.” As this column has said before, before Jagdeo’s notion of transparency was at odds with the more common sense definition employed in the social sciences. Transparency has little to do with fulfilling your Manifesto promises. Transparency refers to the degree of openness of a government.
In terms of governance, transparency refers to the public access to information that is adequate, reliable, relevant, fair, timely and truthful. The fact remains that instead of more transparency, the public is being short-changed once again when it comes to openness on the part of the government.
This is due mainly to the PPP/C returning to its old ways. The government is far from being transparent in the manner in which it is administering the affairs of the State.
Just recently, it was reported that the government had leased the Enmore Packaging Facility to a local investor who is partnering with a foreign enterprise to provide services to the oil and gas sector. That packaging facility was reported to have cost US$12.5M inclusive of the building, which is now being leased. Yet to date, the government is yet to inform the public as to the rental, which is being paid by the investors for a facility which belongs to the taxpayers and which cost more than G$2.5 billion.
Even more insulating, the workers’ union was not told of the deal before hand and had to learn about the new arrangement, including the fate of more than two dozen staff members, through the newspaper. But this is the PPP/C’s idea of transparency: the more you see, the less you know.
At the recently concluded International Energy Conference, the Second Vice President made a statement, which has been reproduced on a Facebook page bearing the title of “Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo”. At the International Energy Conference, the Second Vice President was reported to have said: “For the PPP/C Government, making Guyana sustainable means ensuring everyone ultimately benefits from the proceeds of the oil and gas industry.”
The Second Vice President is ambiguous with this definition. On the face of it, it can be interpreted to mean that Guyanese, regardless of their race, religion, gender, class or place of residence will ultimately benefit from the oil and gas sector. In other words, there will be economic inclusion, no one will be left out or left behind.
But this is not sustainability. Sustainability has nothing to do with ensuring that a wide range of persons and groups benefit from economic resources.
Ensuring that no one is left out is often referred to as economic inclusion. Economic inclusion can be looked at in terms of the ends: ensuring that development is broad based enough so as many as possible benefit; or it can refer to the process of enabling individuals and groups the right to participate in economic processes.
Sustainability is a different kettle of fish. The most common definition of “sustainability” is the maintenance of something at a consistent level or rate. Or it can refer to the avoidance of depletion of a natural resource.
In terms of sustainable development, this, according to the Brundtland Commission Report, means “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.”
Or as one World Bank document puts it, “Sustainability is defined as a requirement of our generation to manage the resource base such that the average quality of life that we ensure ourselves can potentially be shared by all future generations.”
Perhaps when Jagdeo said that everyone will benefit, he meant every generation. But not precisely saying so leaves more questions than answers especially considering that there is no National Oil Depletion Policy.
(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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