Transparency under attack, already endangered

Oct 14, 2022 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Transparency in Guyana has always been a problem for Governments, leaders, ministers, and the public servants that they select to support them. Though we would like to say it, we can’t because neither the old PPP/C Governments, nor old PNC Governments, nor the previous APNU+AFC Coalition, nor this present PPP/C Government have ever been what could be called true, deep, and broad transparency. We at this paper assert that claims of real and comprehensive transparency by any Government and any leader have been nothing but hot air and a disassociation from both the record and reality of Guyana.

The first problem with transparency in Guyana is that it is in a very bad state. The second concern is that as bad as the lack of transparency has been before, it has never been as bad as it is today. We are sure that the PPP/C Government and the President himself will strenuously disagree, which only make matters worse. Because it runs against the grain of what Guyanese live with through most daily developments coming out (or not coming out) of the PPP/C Government. Because the Government powered and Government involved local environment is riddled with secrecy. Because there are so many questions being put before the PPP/C Government, with the same result of no answers being provided, or when there are responses, they only succeed in adding another layer of secrecy and mystery to what is already present.

The PPP/C Government, through its erudite and exemplary figure of ethical comportment, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, did promise to release the mining contracts signed with foreign gold mining entities. It is months later, and the nation still waits with indrawn breath, which held longer could trigger lightheadedness. In other words, lose focus, which is the clever endgame of the PPP/C Government, with sleeping dogs (concealed contracts) that can bite left to snore uninterrupted. This is not transparency. The Vice President directed those asking for the release of the mining contract to the GRA and the GGMC, but roadblocks are encountered when inquiries are made at both institutions. Nothing is being released to the public, and on whose orders we have some idea, but this is the bait and switch game that is being played. Bait and switch practices are not transparency, but this is the culture at work in Guyana, and like never before.

It is over a month after the reportedly (and supposedly) small offshore oil spill involving one barrel of oil, and Guyana’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has lost its powers of speech, more likely, control of its institutional mind. If it is taking over a month for a single-barrel (supposedly) oil spill, and the EPA is wordless and all but worthless, relative to the welfare of the Guyanese environment and the Guyanese people, then the conclusion has to be that the monstrously worse is what is to be expected from this guardian agency, should a big oil spill occur. This cannot be about transparency, not when so much time is needed to cook-up whatever story the EPA and ExxonMobil prepare to convince Guyanese that all is well, and they have nothing to worry about.

Moreover, when the Government can be so cagey over the US$2B Wales gas-to-energy project, with so much lacking, and so much unknown, then that is not transparency. It is the worst example of non-transparency from Government, while having the Vice President and lesser minions sell this GTE project as the best thing that could happen to individual Guyanese. Political commercials, leadership commercials, and a supporting party-oriented clique paid to do print and cyber commercials about the Wales project are not about transparency in the least. Commercials are about concoctions to convince people to buy what is usually bad for them, what they could and should do without. The fact that these commercials have to be pushed conveys how much deception, slickness, and cleverness are at work locally. Transparency is never about those elements; transparency is about truth in governance and truth in leadership. It has never been so bad, so rotten, so self-staining and so self-incriminating. Guyanese shouldn’t need long to come to conclusions on who sell themselves out with their pervasive lack of transparency.

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