Corruption in Guyana

Feb 03, 2023 Editorial

Kaieteur News – It would be interesting to hear what Guyana’s President Ali has to say on a recent development that is a black eye for Guyana. In fact, it is more accurate to state that it is a black eye for the President himself and his PPPC Government. It was the same President Ali who had a lot to say about how transparent he and his government are, and that when the record is examined there is none better where transparency is concerned. The presence of complete transparency in vital aspects and areas of national governance infers that there is nothing to hide, which means that there is accountability, with finality about where corruption or incorruptibility stands.

We are sorry to have to be the bringer of bad news to President Ali. Notwithstanding all he had to say about transparency, and whatever else he was cleverly hinting at through his tough postures relative to accountability and corruption, his handiwork just got thrown right back at him, and in a most telling manner. The Corruption Perception Index (CPI) for 2022 is now public, and Guyana did not do too well in the corruption department.

Quite frankly, it did rather poorly, barely moving about a point on the scorecard. A single point advance in the CPI is negligible, almost meaningless as a measurement of how much a country has progressed where corruption is the issue on the table. Truth be told, after all of the impatient railings by President Ali when confronted with questions about transparency (contracts, reports, and so forth), Guyana still finds itself ranked among some of the countries which are the dregs of the earth where corruption is involved.

By the CPI’s metrics, Guyana finds itself with the likes of India and the Maldives on the corruption front; it is rotten company. On the other hand, tiny Barbados and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines are in a healthy place in relation to the top countries. We must wonder what Prime Ministers Mia Mottley, S.C., and Dr. Ralph Gonsalves think of their fellow in the regional (local) leadership cohort, when the CPI score is reviewed. It cannot be good, for when all the chatter is over, countries with strong institutions of State, and well-functioning democracies are the ones that are at the top of corruption index. This is not a healthy place for either Guyana’s President (the man in charge), or Guyana itself to be, especially when consideration is given to how sharp, strident, and dismissive this nation’s Head-of-State can be when backed into a corner on issues such as transparency and corruption.

At this point, we wish to make something clear: the CPI report is not a gimmick, but a development that is much watched around the world, and has its own weight in respected circles. So, when the President comes up with his own gimmick about transparency, doesn’t mean that there is no confidentiality, then somewhere along the line, he is going to have to make up his mind about what he and his government really stand for, viz., how much transparency, accountability, and incorruptibility both are truly about. It is either than the PPPC Government is serious and genuine about corruption, or it is into playing its usual sly mongoose games.

Of note is that 2022, was a year with the biggest budget ever to that time, with lavish multi-billion allocations for infrastructure and other public projects. This means that there was a deep black hole of corruption opportunities for the ruling party and its cabal of cronies and their related families. We at this paper have reported the astonishing repeatedly, in that the finalized awards for some projects speak to high-level padding to accommodate the corrupt practices that have now grown into a branch of criminal science all by itself. In a nutshell, more budget billions for public works projects mean for openings for thievery on a scale unseen and unheard of before. It is our position at this publication that many of Guyana’s most sensitive State institutions are not functioning as they should, but have been transformed into hotbeds of corruption, through political manipulations. This is what now comes to light in the 2022 Corruption Perception Index.

Corruption Perception Index, Editorial, Guyana’s President Ali, Mia Mottley, PPPC Government, S.C.

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Corruption in Guyana

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Corruption in Guyana

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