Consultation is not abstraction but a characteristic of clean, confident government

Apr 07, 2022 Letters

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Dear Editor,

I agree partially with Guyana’s Hon. Attorney General when he said, “Article 13 not enforceable; Govt. doesn’t have to consult with anyone -Nandlall” (Demerara Waves, April 5). I have to watch myself, as I first agreed with the President (worker shortage), and now the worldly-wise AG on this tricky matter of consultation. I must be getting mellow(er) as the days advance; indeed, senility has a way of creeping up. I can deal with that more than I can with the hallucinatory and stupidity, which is what I think cloaks this latest offering from Guyana’s AG.
I leave the hallowed courts to determine what about Article 13 is enforceable or not.
Regarding consultation, I believe the AG has it right when he said that “Govt. doesn’t have to consult with anyone.” Stalin didn’t. Hitler didn’t. And Vladmir Putin and Kim Jong-un certainly don’t. Now just look at how much trouble they have piled upon their peoples. So, the PPP/C Government and the AG of Guyana is in outstanding company where consultation is concerned, as liberally interpreted. The man is right: dictatorial governments and demagogic leaders don’t have to consult, and they usually don’t. Not on anything, regardless. The dark and wicked side of me likes this. But that no-obligation-to-consult position of the AG is of a strain of democracy and transparency and accountability (His Excellency, again), which is peculiar to Guyana. Only this new Guyana, this Oil Age Guyana.
On the other hand, it is a hallmark of good government (and its leaders), a characteristic of confident government (and its leaders), a necessary, if not mandatory, element of open and honest government (and its leaders) that consultation be the order of the day. As I do so, I reiterate this: consultation is not just a nice thing, it is a standard of good governance, of fearless, principled leadership. On the big things that possess in them the tangibles of national destiny, and what are related to those.
What do the people think, what do the people have to say, what are their anxieties, their objections, their simple concerns, as all expressed in their reactions? Honest government wants to hear that, learn of it. Oil management and clean governance and reforms (genuine reforms are areas that come to mind immediately because of their impacts and meanings to every citizen. A good government listens, not to its empty barrels (no names), but the voice of the people. If I were really to get exercised by this writing, I would throw in such vitals as the constitution, the police, and the environmental safeguards needed. Those are a start only. Incidentally, since government doesn’t have any obligation, does not see it fit to consult when such displeases it (to put meaning to the AG’s posture), then the new acting Commissioner of Police should have been instructed to send out an email, or better yet relax at the Officers’ Club. Why waste time with meaningless, for the record, outreach?
If I could be so bold as to take the AG’s position to its ultimate, reasoned, end, then there is no need for political manifestoes, a consultation by itself, though a unidirectional one: from party to people. Since the people count for so little that public consultation is only engaged in and only endured as a favour to them, a necessary nuisance of responsible governance, then I repeat there is no need for manifestoes and campaigns. Maybe, even GECOM, if the AG’s stand is taken to its natural extensions. It is why I discern that the public consultations that the PPP Government and its fiercely committed agents participate in are nothing but outright deceptions, total farces, and nothing but low comedy. In a sense, the AG is having his say and his way: with those kinds of consultations that Guyanese have had, there was no consultation in the real sense of the word. Thus, his government didn’t only put him up to say that (“doesn’t have to consult), it actually does just that: don’t really consult.
When I consider all of this, I have to congratulate the AG, for he is now in good company, being of the ilk of those legal poodles (sorry, overseas folks) John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzalez, who never let a pro-Bush vision go passing by, without prim constitutional cover. As they saw it and interpreted it, of course, for the benefit of not nation, but of leader and party. On this score, Guyana’s own legal magi, its AG, has stumbled over his feet in his haste to do what keeps him in favourable graces. I congratulate him.
Perhaps, the AG is so busy with official business and real estate matters (Middle Street) he forgot, government of the people, for the people, by the people. The last component does not exist in a vacuum; consultation is not an abstraction, or charity doled out to the people, Mr. AG. Or is it, doctor also? Therefore, it should not be treated so cavalierly, reduced to the surreal. If the AG knows anything, he knows better than what he took to the airwaves to articulate. C’mn, man, get real, get with the 21st century! This is not the era of Henry VIII, damnit. Consultation is like human rights and that other magic word inclusion, or as the President said in his inaugural unity. Remember that one. Consultation, if I may lecture the nation’s chief legal brain (some brain it is….) fleshes out the reality of what we have and what we don’t. Not because he says so. Consultation is a two-way street, not the top down as if from heaven practices that have become the norm here.
Many times, I wish that PPP Government, starts from the head of state on down, would refrain from climbing on these high horses, for far too often they end up getting trampled by them. It is due to their own, ahm, er, idiocies.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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