Dear Editor,

In your very expository editorial captioned ‘A dialogue on corruption’ (07.12.17), you posited that “the government may not agree to enlist the World Bank to do a study on corruption…” I agree with you that should any authentic statistics on this industry become publicly available, it would lead to some healthy dialogue, and hopefully productive results.

However, it is extremely difficult, not to mention dangerous, to carry out any study on corruption mainly because of the underground character of this industry, and the ruthlessness of its operations.

I wonder if the government, instead of commissioning a new study on corruption, would accept the findings of a German- based agency, Transparency International, which in 2006, found that of the 163 countries they studied, Guyana ranked 121. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the least corrupt, Guyana scored 2.8, the second lowest score in the Caribbean, with Haiti being the most corrupt.

I will deal more on the political and social psychology of this industry later. But for now let me say that just as religion and violence are bed-mates in many parts of the world, in the Guyanese society, religion not only seems to ignore but also to absolve corruption.

Yours faithfully,

Gokarran Sukhdeo