The findings of the recent audits of the various state agencies provide some disturbing insights into the manner in which aspects of the state’s resources were being managed under the previous political administration. The mounting and altogether justifiable sense of public disquiet manifested in the wake of the placing of the findings in the public domain derives from a sober realization that there were instances, many of them, it seems, in which persons and cliques in positions of political authority and public trust and assigned to manage and protect the state’s resources plundered them instead. Rules, regulations and procedures were simply shunted aside or never taken account of in the first place, in the single-minded pursuit of a pattern of behaviour which, taken in context, was, quite simply, unconscionable.
Unpalatable as it may seem, the findings of the audits point to a persistent pattern of converting public funds into private ‘stashes’ which those so ‘authorized’ could access from time to time. The practice, quite simply, callously disregarded the alternative needs of the country as a whole. Perhaps just as damaging as the resulting material loss to the nation is what may well be the effect of deepening an already entrenched public belief that the pursuit of political office is driven overwhelmingly by a fixation with personal material aggrandizement.
There are a host of differing views on the magnitude of the indiscretions revealed in the audits and just how the present administration should now proceed. From a public perspective there exists in some quarters a point of view that has to do with just how much could have been done with the resources that have ‘gone south’ in what the audit reports portray as a major problem. The public outrage, as was mentioned earlier, can be excused, particularly when account is taken of the nexus between the wholescale ripping off of the public treasury and the simultaneous denial of some important national needs in areas such as jobs, education, social protection and health care. It is the feeling – among ordinary Guyanese, mostly – of having been betrayed by those entrusted with the responsibility of holding high office that appears to be driving a growing insistence on restitution and retribution.
Arguably, it may well be the biggest challenge that the APNU+AFC administration has faced so far. On the one hand – and it has already been suggested elsewhere – the magnitude of the matter is of such that it simply cannot be wished away. On the other – and equally important in our view – is the need to ensure that the official response is not driven, figuratively, by a baying for blood. On the one hand the findings of the audits cannot be allowed to pass without a serious official response. On the other, difficult as it might prove to be, everything must be done to prevent the issue from drifting into the realm of national political feuding and controversy driven by pre-existing deep societal divisions. In other words, in as much as the government dare not allow its responsibility to do its duty in this matter to be swayed by tactical accusations of a witch hunt, by the same token, its approach to doing what is, in fact, its duty as the custodians of the state, must be underpinned by a strict adherence to lawfulness that will inevitably enhance its own standing with both its domestic and external constituencies.
There are other lessons that derive from this travesty which one hopes the government will find instructive. The audits themselves, point to instances of wholescale abandonment of rules and procedures and their replacement with political edicts in order to facilitate procedural transgressions. This brings us to what may well be the most dangerous disease in our political culture: the routine circumnavigation of clearly laid down rules and regulations utilizing the tool of ministerial edict. It is a practice that has laid waste to critical institutional safeguards, facilitated the unlawful exercise of power and transformed many senior public servants into toothless ‘yes’ men and women who, in the face of ministerial assertiveness have simply rolled over. Indeed, there are indications that have emerged from the audits that some of the worst transgressions were facilitated by the practice of having political clout out-muscle rules and regulations.
Incidentally, the cynical supersession of rules and regulations by ministerial directives was one of the much-discussed issues during the hearings of the Public Service Commission of Inquiry. A test of the present administration’s commitment to good governance and adherence to rules and regulations will repose in its responses to the views articulated in the report of the CoI in the matter of the desired ridding of the public service from unlawful political interference. Public servants, too, have a responsibility to insist that they be allowed to work by the rules.
Increasingly, the available evidence (including lessons that continue to manifest themselves in our country) suggests that the most effective way of allowing rules, regulations and procedures governing the administration of the state to work effectively is to remove ministerial edict and the various other forms of political muscle-flexing that have disfigured the process. Indeed, some of the transgressions reflected in the audits would probably have resulted from the failure/inability of public officers to push back against the unlawful application of political authority. That has to change.
