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Addressing corruption
Editorial…
Kaieteur News- Our country has been so ravaged by corruption that when revelations- the likes of what Mr. Azruddin Mohamed released yesterday and the infamous Su-gate happen, citizens react by saying “this is nothing new.”
Guyanese are so seasoned to corruption that they can smell it and the people who are engaged in it from a distance. Yet very little is done about the local epidemic of corruption, and this is despite the bright promises and stirring claims of leaders in this PPP/C Government to be thoroughly and powerfully against corrupt practices, and those who are part of such.
In its Corruption Perception Index (CPI) report this year published by Transparency International, it was noted that Guyana score fell slightly from 40 points in 2023 to 39 in 2024, placing the country at 92 out of 180 nations. But what was significant in the report is that it states that the state of Guyana had been captured by the economic and political elites, fostering misappropriation of resources, illicit enrichment and environmental crimes. 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.”
It is this kind of assessment that confirms Mr. Mohamed’s disclosures of President Irfaan Ali using his office to significantly reduce tax duties on a luxury vehicle normal. As reported by Transparency International, the state has been captured by the elites. Never mind, the poor and dispossessed are barely eking out a living, our leaders unashamedly waive massive duties to their friends and families and cronies. We have witnessed over the past few years significant and widespread complaints of massive corruption in government and accusations that billion-dollar contracts are being handed out to friends and families of government officials. Several government ministers are also fingered in corruption schemes – some allegedly owning construction companies, hotels and other businesses and have assigned persons to front them.
We recall the scandal of corrupt allocation of State lands, which forced the resignation of the Chief Executive Officer of the Central Housing and Planning Authority, Sherwyn Greaves. In June 2024, disgraced former Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Labour, Mae Thomas resigned as a member of the People’s Progressive Party Central Committee after she was sanctioned by the United States Government for allegedly taking bribes to facilitate the award of government contracts, passports and gun licences to the Mohameds.
In addition, billions in scarce taxpayers’ dollars are employed to prop up State corporations that are not profitable – providing another avenue to steal from citizens and contracts with inflated price tags are handed out to friends of the government. One of the distinctive elements of this publication’s daily output over the years has been the relentless focus of corruption in Guyana.
This has incurred the wrath of more than one government. Over the years, national leaders have never ceased in their efforts to disagree with allegations and reports of massive corruption. Leadership disagreement has been vicious, with little energy spared to go after corrupt players and the costly practices that have resulted. Like a cancer, corruption has infiltrated and then spread across Guyana, sickening the entire society. We are searching and waiting for a single admission, even an acknowledgement, that there is, indeed, a problem in this or that space, and that some curative work is necessary, and that it will be done. The PPPC Government is too arrogant, too contemptuous, to lower itself to such a level, where only some genuineness is called for, a little sincerity of which it seems utterly incapable. Acknowledgement of reality and admission of some responsibility are solid first steps. Political leaders may believe that they have glossed over, and gotten away with, the costly culture that undermines this country’s promise. They fool themselves, for most citizens, including their own, see through the gaps between what is preached and what is practised.
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