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Opposition agrees with TI findings on corruption in Guyana
Kaieteur News-The main opposition parties in Guyana have voiced their agreement with Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranking, which highlighted concerns about state capture, misappropriation of resources, and weak law enforcement against corruption.
Leader of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), Aubrey Norton
The 2024 CPI showed Guyana slipping from 40 points in 2023 to 39 in 2024, ranking 92 out of 180 countries on the global corruption scale. At a press conference on Friday, Leader of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), Aubrey Norton, criticized the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) government for what he described as “rampant corruption”.
“The PNCR/APNU agrees with the latest findings of Transparency International that the PPP government is captured by economic and political elites, which has led to rampant corruption and illicit enrichment,” Norton stated.
Norton accused the government of allowing the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) and regional tender boards to violate procurement laws without consequence.
“It has done nothing to strengthen the Public Procurement Commission,” he added.
Similarly, Alliance For Change (AFC) member Khemraj Ramjattan, expressed his party’s support for Transparency International’s findings, saying the report confirms the party’s long-held stance on corruption within the PPP government.
“The AFC feels and is vindicated when it’s characterized the PPP governing elite, most critically, as a corrupt battle control freaks gorging ravenously at the state’s drop,” Ramjattan said at the AFC press conference on Friday.
He pointed out that contracts are awarded to friends and family, with billions of dollars wasted or going unaccounted for.
“All Guyanese know that what is in the report is very much the reality. Contracts are awarded to friends and family. Substandard works are done by unqualified contractors. Billions of dollars are wasted and discriminatorily distributed, and even more, billions go unaccounted for,” he stated.
Alliance For Change (AFC) member Khemraj Ramjattan
The opposition’s remarks come on the heels of President Irfaan Ali’s dismissal of the Transparency International findings on corruption in Guyana. The president has questioned the methodology of the rankings and suggested political bias in the findings.
“In Guyana, state capture by economic and political elites fosters misappropriation of resources, illicit enrichment and an environmental crime,” the Transparency International report said.
It added: “Although the country has created anti-corruption institutions and laws, transparency and law enforcement are very low, and attacks on dissenting voices, activists and journalists increasingly common.”
(Opposition agrees with TI findings on corruption in Guyana)
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