While declaring it was extremely pleased at the media coverage of its Gala Dinner on August 28th which was addressed by President Jagdeo, the Private Sector Commission (PSC) nonetheless in a statement on September 7th criticized the media for what it said was its failure to capture “the fact of the very frank and open exchange of views between the President and his audience on matters of concern to the private sector, at which the President emphasized that nothing should be considered taboo”.
Noting that the President responded for over two hours to a vast array of questions and observations, the PSC added that it believed that it was an “unprecedented occasion and unique in its democratic character, when a Head of State places himself completely at the disposal of the captains of industry and commerce in a dialogue which was refreshing and often revealing, conducted in an atmosphere of mutual respect, deserving acknowledgement”.
Anyone reading the above would probably be on the right track if they arrived at the conclusion that someone or some in the PSC were working overtime to burnish the image of the battered Presidency and stage manage a stately dinner for his benefit. It would have been far more appropriate for the PSC to enumerate in detail the disclosures by the President which were substantial and material to the business community. The public would then have been in a far better position to judge whether the President delivered or simply meandered.
The PSC must surely be aware that the media’s role is not to cheerlead for the President as some at the dinner appeared to want to do, in one case to the extent of suggesting that a third term would be a shoo-in for Mr Jagdeo – particularly dangerous in the context of the well-known constitutional term limits.
The media’s role that evening was as it always is: to glean the gems that could be considered newsworthy and to put everything into its proper perspective. As far as we are concerned this was done and there was no need for any embellishments or fluff.
Increasingly there is a tendency in private sector circles to present the President and the presidency in fulsome terms, sometimes bordering on hagiography. It is unsurprising as it is well-known that the President has been very successful in mobilising allies in the private sector to do his bidding, something that was also evident in the pre-1992 years of the Hoyte administration. What those alliances have sought to do and have succeeded to some extent was to diminish or soften well-placed criticisms of the state of national affairs and to give him breathing room in times of crises. They have also sought to shroud reality akin to the hoardings that were erected in front of Turkeyen shacks when foreign dignitaries were at the international conference centre.
As in the Hoyte years, it has been left to a few voices in the business community to heroically speak the truth. Who could ever forget the courageous stand that was taken by the doyen of the business community, Mr Yesu Persaud in favour of free and fair elections and democratic reforms in the years leading up to the 1992 polls. It set him apart as someone who was willing to risk the slings and arrows of an undemocratic era in the quest for larger freedoms, not for himself, but for all Guyanese. In recent years, that mantle has been mostly left to Chartered Accountant Mr Christopher Ram with few others willing to risk taking courageous public stands. There surely needs to be more voices from the private sector and the rest of civil society speaking up about transgressions of governance norms by this government.
The dinner and several other events which appear timed to shore up President Jagdeo’s image do a disservice to the constituency of the PSC by creating a different and blurred reality. The real truth is that very serious questions are staring stonily at President Jagdeo and his government. Questions that strike at the heart of whether they turned a blind eye or enabled the criminalizing of the state and questions about whether there was an active association between drug lord Roger Khan and senior government officials. These dilemmas in turn feed back to the fundamental issues of the quality of governance that this administration is dispensing and whether it is just, even-handed, responsible and observant of the rule of law. Those questions simply won’t go away and won’t be softened by any collegial gatherings that might be organized to present an inviting microphone and a friendly audience for the President.
And even if the occasion was not one for no-holds barred engagements with the President there were numerous other issues that the business community could have vigorously pressed him on. The CLICO (Guyana) fiasco and the administration’s culpability in this matter, the collapse of the much vaunted investigation of Fidelity, the stagnation in the economy, the joblessness, the stalemated tax reforms despite the administration’s continuing pledges, the basis for the 16% VAT rate, the failure to reorient the economy away from primary products after 17 years of PPP/C governance, the now non-existent dialogue over annual budget presentations, the continuing contortions in the electricity and water supply sectors which affect businesses in serious ways and any number of other matters such as the investment climate.
Indeed, the continuing concerns about red tape in the latest instalment of the report commissioned by the World Bank on doing business which illustrates how difficult it is to set up here is a further indictment of the manner in which the government treats with the business sector.
All things being equal, one might have expected a press release of a different tenor: one that recognized the President’s willingness to be frank, forthright and expansive but one that also transmitted that there remained entrenched concerns on many topics.
Hopefully the PSC and its constituents will have another opportunity to redress the balance as the disjunction between its release and the obligations of the business community is glaring.
