As the chair of TI, Huguette Labelle said so aptly, “Stemming corruption requires strong oversight by parliaments, a well performing judiciary, independent and properly resourced audit and anti-corruption agencies, vigorous law enforcement, transparency in public budgets, revenue and aid flows, as well as space for independent media and a vibrant civil society.”
The recipe for fighting corruption here is without many of the essential ingredients, so much so that the result is endemic and entrenched corruption. As TI observed when essential institutions are weak or non-existent, corruption spirals out of control and the plundering of public resources feeds insecurity and impunity.
President Jagdeo has presided over the affairs of this country for more than a decade now. It is under his tenure that the spectre of corruption and the conditions that feed it have become all-pervasive. The responsibility is his to clean up this image and reality in the two years he has remaining as President.
By committing to the Memorandum of Understanding with the Kingdom of Norway to tap financing for reduced emissions from our forests, President Jagdeo has signed on to a system of rigorous scrutiny and checks and balances that do not exist at the moment in any other part of public business. It is left to be seen whether Guyana can meet the standards for disbursal of the funds and the subsequent monitoring of the expenditure, but it would be demeaning and an act of gross opportunism were President Jagdeo not to begin putting in place what was required to ensure greater transparency.
As we pointed out in our editorial a year ago on the subject of the TI report, there are several things which President Jagdeo’s government can immediately do. Despite the painstaking constitutional reforms of 2000, President Jagdeo’s government is still unable to constitute a Public Procurement Commission and its tribunal. The absence of this body has led to growing concerns over the transparency and fairness of the huge public procurement process. Yet billions continue to be disbursed each year. The absence of a means for appeals by persons dissatisfied with the procurement process also has the effect of forcing those who may want to benefit from it in the future to turn a blind eye to infractions that they might be aware of.
The absence of a suitably qualified Auditor General has also led to inescapable questions about the commitment and willingness of this important watchdog to police public finances. It would be remembered that the current holder of the position took office after his well-respected predecessor was hounded out of office by threatening behaviour by Office of the President officials.
Despite much heated rhetoric from President Jagdeo, the Integrity Commission remains in mothballs while the Ombudsman’s office continues to be unoccupied. To make matters worse, despite numerous commitments and the existence of a useful template put together by the AFC, this government is yet to present or acquiesce to access to information legislation – seen as the No.1 tool for exposing and rooting out corruption.
As has become very evident, the Jagdeo administration is completely dismissive of local attempts to ensure transparency. Lip service is paid to these commitments while only select international impositions such as the ones from Oslo are taken with any seriousness.
Guyana may however in the future find itself at the receiving end of an international trend to ensure that fighting corruption isn’t just lip service. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime will be checking on all 142 countries which have signed its legally binding Convention Against Corruption to ensure that they are taking real measures, Guyana having acceded in April of 2008. The reports which will be issued from around 2011 will locate gaps in anti-corruption laws and practices and highlight areas for improvement. The reports will specifically check whether states are prosecuting corruption, recovering stolen assets and improving information exchange with other countries.
The blatant disdain which the government shows for transparency in its business will continue to haunt its international image in reports such as TI’s. Nowhere is disdain more clear than in central government’s own expenditure on big ticket items such as the Great Flood of 2005, the Cricket World Cup of 2007 and Carifesta of 2008. None of these reports has been presented despite repeated promises. Will they ever be?
