The Civic groups should engage the government on their concerns

Mar 08, 2022 Letters

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Dear Editor,

Reference is made to a Kaieteur News article dated March 3, 2022 with the caption “Civic Groups say Gov’t out of control”. I read with interest the long list of civic groups’ criticisms of the Government. I have been following the debates or I should say the concerns raised by the referenced NGOs, commentators alike, and the responses emanating from other sections of civil society; and from Government officials questioning the legitimacy and agenda of these organizations.
However, while the legitimacy; functions and mandates of most if not all of the referenced NGO’s, are not to be discounted, I will not get involved in that aspect of the debate on this subject. Rather, I am treating each of those organizations as a group of individuals with a common modus operandi, who sought to utilize their respective organizations to advocate their collective, individualistic, and singularism agenda, arguably under the pretext of legitimate concerns on the Government’s style of conducting the nation’s business.
Editor, I shall now attempt to highlight the inherent flaws grounded in the groups’ subjective assertions largely on account of their seemingly incapability to critically, empirically, objectively and rigorously substantiate their unfounded assertions.
According to the article, the bodies reportedly said that “there is no longer any official institution or agency which anyone – including those sympathetic to the Administration – can turn for an objective assessment of major issues affecting the future of Guyana.” To support this view, the NGOs claimed that the Parliamentary Sectoral Committees don’t meet; regional governments and Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDC) have never been allowed to function independently.” This statement suggests that the respective NGOs do not fully understand the functions of these committees, and where they need to turn to for an objective assessment of issues.
There are four sectoral committees of the National Assembly, namely: The Natural Resources Committee, the Economic Services Committee, the Foreign Relations Committee; and the Social Services Committee. These committees have the “responsibility for the scrutiny of all areas of Government policy and administration. In the exercise of their responsibility they have the power to examine all policies and administration for each sector to determine whether the execution of Government policy is in consonance with the principle of good governance and in the best interest of the nation.” Further to note, these committees are regarded as an extension of the National Assembly, limited by the extent of the authority given to them, but governed in the proceedings by the same rules as those which prevail in the National Assembly” (cited from Parliament of Guyana website).
My layman interpretation of this is that if one wishes to have an objective assessment of issues and government policies, then one has to do so themselves. In this case, it is the NGOs that ought to have the technical capability to conduct their own, independent and objective assessment of issues and public policy. Where those NGOs lack such expertise, they can outsource this from independent professionals on the various subject matters. In the developed world, countries such as the United States have perhaps hundreds of think tanks, academic institutions and universities that provide objective assessments and analyses on public policies for public consumption.
In Guyana, there is no dedicated institution or a credible think tank per se, of any sort, or even the University of Guyana do not conduct any kind of assessments on a regular basis of public policy and national cross cutting issues. We do have however, many letter writers, columnists, analysts, armchair and fly by night experts and organizations that often times pass off many mediocre opinionated pieces as analyses.
Notwithstanding, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) conducts an annual assessment and analyses through a consultative process on the economic policies of member states. This report known as the IMF Article IV report can be accessed on the institution’s website. This is an example of a credible source from an international institution that carries out assessments on public policy that these NGOs can turn to for guidance. In fact, in the same article the NGOs reportedly criticized the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) Act. However, the concerned NGOs are probably unaware of the IMF’s recommendations on Guyana’s NRF framework which the amended Act is woefully in compliance in terms of the Fund’s governance structure. The referenced group also went onto register their concern of the “stripping of the Public Accountability and Oversight Committee from the NRF Act. I should point out though that this is not true; as this committee is part of the amended Act albeit in a recalibrated structure and which remained in compliance with international best practice (Santiago Principles).
Another critical contention put forward by the so-called civil society grouping, was one that focused heavily on the Guyana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (GYEITI) wherein the authors sought to attack the appointment of the newly appointed Head of the GYEITI. The group hasten to attack the gentleman by attempting to discredit his credentials and vexatiously implied that the gentleman does not have the requisite qualifications – but failing to acknowledge altogether that this gentleman is a prominent and prolific Guyanese academician who held positions such as the Pro-Chancellor of the University of Guyana, and has worked in universities abroad in similar capacities; the gentleman also holds a PhD., two master’s degree and a bachelor’s degree, and he has authored several publications – thus making him an extremely well qualified candidate without question, for the job at hand.
Ironically and perhaps hypocritically, these very civil groups responded recently to their critics from persons in civil society and government officials by complaining that the government and others attacked the messenger rather than the message. Yet, this very group in their original statement did not think twice to ridicule an astute and well-respected Guyanese academician, without providing any credible, cogent and compelling justifications for their opinionated arguments.
The manner in which the referenced civil groups wrote about this individual’s appointment to the GYEITI gives one the impression that it is a grave crime being committed by the Government and that transparency and accountability as far as the work of the GYEITI is concerned, will die a natural death. Again, this picture that this particular grouping is trying to paint is far from the reality and is fraught with a noxious propagandistic narrative.
To that end, the above is suggestive of this particular grouping’s ignorance of the overarching framework, mandate, functions and structure of the GYEITI because if they do, they would understand that regardless of who is appointed as the National Coordinator of the organization, they cannot deviate from the guiding principles of the organization.
For ease of reference, the GYEITI is part of a global standard that promotes transparency and accountability in oil, gas and mining sectors. The EITI is governed by an international Board and there are about 56 countries that have agreed to adopt the EITI standard. The Board consists of 20 members representing implementing countries, supporting countries, civil society organizations, industry and institutional investors. The benefits of implementing countries include more investments, promotion of open and accountable governance as well as greater political and economic stability. Interestingly to note, Guyana gave its first impetus for the implementation of the EITI in 2010 and in 2012, Guyana’s commitment was followed by the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Government of Guyana at the time (which is the current Administration), and the EITI.
Clearly, the layman reading this epistle would understand that even though this seemingly vexatious group sought to bash the newly appointed National Coordinator of the GYEITI and by extension the Government, the GYEITI is governed by an international Board. Therefore, the credibility of the process, inter alia, the continued implementation and compliance of this global standard, by and large, is likely to be unjeopardised. In other words, it is the commitment of the Government of the day to implement this global standard, which is ultimately governed by an international Board.
Editor, if this particular group of civil society NGOs is really serious about contributing in a meaningful way to Guyana’s development, then it would be worthwhile for them to reconsider their strategic approach. Where for example, instead of criticizing for the sake of critiquing albeit weak and lacking empirical substance, they may want to consider engaging directly with the Government of the day. However, they would have to do better than just selling narratives characterized as misinformation and effectively misleading the public. A framework of open dialogue which I know the Government is open to from all stakeholders would be appropriate. The Government is not averse to criticism, in fact the Government has demonstrated on many occasions that they are open to constructive criticisms. For example, for the first time in Guyana’s recent political landscape that the Government of the day accepted ten of fourteen proposals from the Opposition which was included as amendments to the final Local Content Act. Unfortunately, this cannot be said for the Natural Resource Fund Act, where the Opposition brought zero proposal to the National Assembly as was demonstrated, they had a different agenda.
It is also safe to say, and evidently so, that the highest level of Government up to the President himself is visible and accessible to the public, something which was not the norm by the former President. This is an irrefutable fact where the former President hardly interacted with the public, and particularly the press/press conferences. In fact, most of his press conferences were controlled press conferences where journalists were limited in the amount of questions they can ask. And, I can never recall of a time when the former President made decisions on the spot and intelligibly respond to questions on matters of the economy. The current President is well versed in these areas and on many occasions instructed his ministers and made decisions on the spot to address concerns of the citizens, whenever he is in an outreach exercise.
I can also attest personally to the fact that the former President in his five years term in office rarely or perhaps never afforded the leadership of private sector organisations (which are also civil society stakeholders) the opportunity to engage with him in meetings. Today, the current President and all of the cabinet ministers are almost always available to engage private sector organizations upon their requests to so do.
The hullabaloo by the referenced civic groups that the Government is out of control and that there is no objective assessment of issues, are two unjustified assertions, and divorced from reality. If they are looking for objective assessment of public policies and issues, there are several credible organizations they can turn to, such as the IMF, the IDB and a few other international think tanks such as Rystad that produces analyses on the oil and gas sector.
It is untrue that Government policies and issues are not clear to the public. The Government’s policies and development agenda are clearly articulated, well documented and accessible to the public. Also, these civic groups and organizations need to be able to conduct their own objective assessments and analyses of public policy and issues and more importantly, to be used as the basis in engaging the Government in dialogue to work together in achieving a common goal.
It is my humble and respectful opinion that the Government is on the right path in terms of accelerating Guyana’s development. We are 20+ years behind owing to our own peculiar development challenges, historically. We need to now formidably overcome those challenges which, includes correcting misinformation being peddled by naysayers and critics who are on a mission to derail Guyana’s accelerated development for the benefit, upliftment and prosperity of all of its people.
Editor, I will close here for now as there were several other concerns raised by the civic groups which space precludes me from addressing in this letter. I shall contribute my thoughts on the others in forthcoming letters.
Sincerely
J.C Bhagwandin

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