Reform desperately needed all over

Jul 11, 2023 Editorial

Kaieteur News – The sordid matter allegedly involving the former Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, Mr. Nigel Dharmalall, confirms all believed to be wrong in this country. Though a riveted nation thought they saw and heard a lot, it was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. In Guyana’s case, there is nothing proverbial or figurative about the sum and depth of what is embedded here, but of the ugly reality that Guyanese are forced to contend with daily. Considering the vastness of national deficiencies in seemingly every government nook and cranny, it becomes blindingly clear about how much genuine reform is needed locally.

Genuine reform is the only kind, with proper textures and conscientious officials behind it, that will lead to possible direly needed improvement. One thing is clear: it is not the reform that the PPPC Government makes speeches about, and engages in dramatic productions over, since those have only been about what serves the party’s and leaders’ interests more than that of a longsuffering, disgusted population. The government’s leading spokespeople have been proud to unveil reform in this and that areas, only for confirmation to come quickly that nothing has changed for the better. If anything, the worse has occurred, with more tricks and subterfuges being the order of the day, and senior political participants making hay at the expense of Guyanese.

We took a quick look at the Nigel Dharamlall matter and recoiled at what surfaced. Public institution after public institution went into full protective mode so that the real thorough investigation, the real facts, the real truths that were so urgently called for, all suffered from what many have concluded to be political expediency. There were many willing official hands to steer matters into a safe harbor that led to the single result desired. Above all things, it must be that which protects the image of the People’s Progressive Party Government, and its top operators whose already depraved records and tattered reputations simply degraded further.

The Guyana Police Force had the opportunity to shine, but all it was capable of was more of the same darkness and rankness that have plagued its command centers and operations for decades and counting, but never as seen recently. The Childcare and Protection Agency was well-placed to be the driller for authentic substance, and do justice by a child, a community, and a watchful citizenry, only for it to prove not up to the task, with folding of its energies, its bona fides now in apparent disgrace and national ridicule. It is our belief that the DPP’s office could have risen to the occasion and done better: let the day in court come to be, and let this cheap and obscene matter be given the proper sanitizing sunlight that Guyanese expected to happen, so that justice would not only be served, but give every appearance of being fully served.

Of this let there be no argument: the former minister is due the presumption of innocence. Along the same lines, the poor, naïve, and dependent in this society are owed the best that their government can offer. When the President should have acted boldly and with energy, he was more comfortable distancing himself from the fray, while the engine of damage control revved to its maximum. When the wagons were being circled to protect party and comrade, vigilant Guyanese noted who was in the lead by either convenient absence or protective presence.

To be sure, not one PPPC Government leader or minister said a wrong word in the throes of the Dharamlall affair, as alleged. They are all too schooled, too skillful from long practice, to make that mistake, trap themselves so unthinkingly. But they had indications from prior visible excesses, from others who took to public forums to share their experiences. As we talk about all that needs the most rigorous reforms, one element should never slip our minds. It is that for any reform to be meaningful, to have a chance at success, the people piloting the reforms forward must themselves be first reformed. The dirty cannot deliver what is clean. The twisted is incapable of straightness. Reform the political people first, then reform the policies, procedures, and practices.

Editorial, Guyana Local Government Officers Union (GLGOU), local, matter, Nigel Dharamlall

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