Corruption and confidence

Jan 13, 2024 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Governments usually like to crow about how cleanly they govern. Government agents are likely to curse the Extractive Industries and Transparency Initiative (EITI) report of 2021, which notes declines in three categories of oversight. Control of Corruption, Regulatory Quality, and Voice and Accountability. To maintain balance, in the three remaining categories of Government Effectiveness, Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism, and Rule of Law Guyana did record improvement. We focus more on two of the three areas that indicated declines, Control of Corruption and Voice and Accountability, because they have been running sores, with many Guyanese troubled or fearful.

For purposes of clarity, though the actual report has been confirmed as being for 2021, the graphs and related information are for up to December 21^st, 2023, which means that, all things being equal, nothing with material impact should influence the 2022 numbers, as received and presented. We are comfortable, therefore, examining the 2022 to 2021 relationship, and all that it conveys.

EITI uses a protocol called Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI). WGI gathers the perceptions of households, businesses, and citizens in over 200 countries as part of how government performance is seen and then measured. Transparency and good governance are prime objectives. The numbers for 2022 in comparison to the official 2021report are displeasing, and confirm what many Guyanese privately believe: governance in Guyana is not as clean as touted.

Relative to Control of Corruption, Guyana was scored at 48.57 in 2021, and then went down to 45.28 in 2022. A score of 48.57 out of 100 is poor to begin with, and to go down even further to 45.28 a year later relays how much of what is feared is actually happening, at least as assessed by the people of Guyana (households, businesses, and citizens). It is a telling indictment of government, and leaves no illusions about the huge gap between what officials say about transparency and good governance as opposed to what is believed to be local reality. Generally speaking, Control of Corruption is the perception about how public power is used for private gain, and how elites have ‘captured’ the state. The fact that Guyanese households, Guyanese businesses, and Guyanese citizens have a more dismal perception of what this definition represents locally cannot be the kind of testimony that any government would welcome.

The EITI graph beginning in 2017 on Control of Corruption stood at a low of 37.62, which is staggering. Things improved by a fair margin in 2018 and 2019, only to fall slightly in 2020. It must be recalled that almost two-thirds of 2020 were wasted by elections traumas. So the 46.67 evidencing a dip from 2019 (50.48) cannot be given much weight. The picture painted by EITI for 2021, as officially reported, and 2022, (as graphically presented) is cause for concern that the corruption bug is not letting go. It is biting more deeply, if not juicily, into the business and governance of Guyana. Though we agree with the EITI’s report for 2021, we cannot claim any credit, other than saying we at this publication have been at the forefront of the corruption battle, regardless of which one of the two major political groups has been in power. Households, businesses, and citizens of Guyana have recorded their perceptions, and that says it all.

Regarding Voice and Accountability, there was a tiny decline in 2022 from 2021. This governance indicator has to do with perceptions about free media, freedom of speech, protection of journalists, transparency in procurement, and reliability of state accounts, among other things. We can speak from hard experience about press conferences, ‘cuss-downs’, abuse of professionals by covert functionaries, and a pattern of such behaviour. Frankly, the numbers from EITI on this governance area should be worse. On freedom of expression, the frequent refrain of citizens is that they want to say something, but are afraid of the consequences. Meaning, that there are anxieties over being targeted and punished via their jobs, their families, even their safety. It may not be a stretch to assert that for each citizen that speaks out, there is an untold number that shrink in homage to the old adage that discretion is the better part of valor.

Control of Corruption, Editorial, Government, Regulatory Quality, terrorism

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