Government spokesmen were getting their tongues tied in knots last week. Both the ever voluble Mr Anil Nandlall and the ever circumlocutory Dr Roger Luncheon applied their artistry to trying to persuade the public that President Donald Ramotar did not say what everyone thought he said – or at least implied. No, no, they insisted; the President never used the word terrorism in his address to the nation about the opposition’s refusal to approve the Amaila project bill and motion in Parliament, let alone the word ‘terrorist’ (perish the thought). In fact, what had happened, they averred, was that when Gina issued the press release containing a transcript of the President’s speech, it carried a headline part of which read, “An act of terrorism against the development of Guyana.”
It is clear that Messrs Nandlall and Luncheon are more divorced from how the public perceives events than anyone might have thought possible. In the first place, people are not so lacking in verbal skills that they will fail to make the connection that acts of terrorism are impliedly carried out by terrorists. And in the second, do the two gentlemen seriously think that the citizens of this country, who live on one of the most politicised patches of terra firma on the planet, are persuaded that Gina was overcome by a spasm of dangerous creativity and placed their own headline?
If that is indeed the case, why has no one been fired as yet? Since to the best of anyone’s knowledge, no employee has even been reprimanded at the agency, the population can be forgiven for assuming that the headline emanated from somewhere within the Office of the President.
As it is, it was a faux pas which had a price, since Mr Khemraj Ramjattan and the representatives of APNU walked out of the parliamentary committee considering the anti-money laundering bill, which, it will be remembered, has to meet a deadline. Mr Ramjattan said that the AFC could not be asked to consider a bill dealing with terrorism, when the President had branded the opposition as being guilty of terrorism, and he has asked the President to withdraw the statement.
All of this is symptomatic of the muddle into which the government has got itself, with no apparent notion as to how it might extricate itself from the confusion. Part of the problem – although not all of it, certainly – may relate to the fact that Congress is coming up soon, and it wants to deflect criticism of its performance there and most of all, not give the appearance of being weak. Certainly, from inappropriate captions on transcripts, to public statements from one official or another, the pit-bull approach appears to be what is holding sway. It is a style of public communication which characterized the government of Mr Ramotar’s predecessor, but it is totally counter-productive for the PPP at this point in time.
The government wants the anti-money laundering bill passed, because there could be punitive consequences if the deadline is not met; the government wants the Hydro Electric Power (Amendment) Bill passed to make the Amaila project compliant with the environmental policies (among other things) of the IDB; and the government wants the motion to increase the country’s debt ceiling passed in order, it says, to facilitate the power purchase agreement between GPL and Amaila. In contrast, it does not like two of the four local government bills which it would not like to see passed.
The bottom line of the government’s problem remains its refusal to adapt its tactics to the legislative reality – the combined opposition’s one-seat majority. In a situation where it needs the co-operation of the opposition to pass legislation which it regards as crucial, then it needs a great deal more openness on the subject matter of the bills it tables than it has been wont to share with the other parliamentary parties up to this point. Furthermore, it also needs a great deal more genuine consultation, whereby the government listens to the opposition’s concerns, rather than just goes through the motions.
Where the anti-money laundering bill is concerned, the committee hearing on that has been derailed by the ‘terrorism’ contretemps. It will not be resolved by the pedantry and evasions of Mr Nandlall and Dr Luncheon – in fact that is the worst possible approach. The government has to try some less antagonistic and small-minded formulation which could be interpreted as a withdrawal, and would satisfy the opposition that the President, at least, did not intend a slur. There is no point in creating an impasse when the mistake is on your side, and things are mired there because you refuse to acknowledge this at some level.
As for the Amaila project, it has been played wrong from the beginning, and the government has undermined its own credibility in a major way by ignoring all concerns, starting during former President Jagdeo’s time. Eventually, the shortcomings of Mr ‘Fip’ Motilall in relation to the access road were exposed, and the estimated costs of the road as well as the hydropower facility have skyrocketed. In other words the government record where Amaila is concerned has given no one confidence in their judgement, more particularly since so many questions remain unanswered.
While rather belatedly the administration did fly members of the opposition over the site and revealed some details about it to them on a confidential basis, this apparently still leaves important issues unresolved. Where consultations prior to the vote on the bill are concerned, APNU MP Carl Greenidge had the following to say to this newspaper: “While it is true that we have been having discussions over the last day over a variety of things including the hydro, at no point [were] the specific amendments, which appeared yesterday only… provided to us by the government. In addition to the four-page bill, you now had an amendment which is larger than the bill itself. It is really not normal to appear in the Parliament and to have to take a decision of that nature on the spot.”
In other words, the government has learnt nothing from the experience of the last year, and is still incapable of levelling with the opposition when it needs their co-operation; instead it goes into traditional hostile mode. The position of the AFC, as is well known, is that they would like to see the due diligence from the IDB expected in October before they decide to support the bill, although Dr Clive Thomas, for example, believes that we should not be dependent on any outside agency for guidance on an issue such as this. Certainly Messrs Christopher Ram and Ramon Gaskin put up a strong case last week for putting the project to retender now.
The long and the short of this is that the government should reconcile itself to the fact that it will not secure passage of its bill now, and possibly not before October ‒ if at all. There are so many uncertainties associated with the project, that the country cannot afford to walk into it with its eyes closed. The government’s problem is that this is such a massive undertaking, and the PPP has so much face riding on it, that despite the well founded doubts, it could not face the humiliation of abandoning Amaila.
In addition to the government’s other problems, we reported Mr Ramjattan as saying yesterday that the bill seeking an increase in the loans ceiling was in no way connected to Amaila, although the government had presented it as such. If this is true, it would be further evidence of a lack of good faith on the regime’s part.
As for the local government bills, the opposition had its own bit of muddle to add to the confusion. Without going into the details, it was Dr Henry Jeffrey who pointed out in his SN column last week that the opposition should not have sought the passage of the bills “in a context questioning the government’s right to set the parliamentary agenda.” As he rightly argued, these bills should not be tied to anything else – and certainly not the passage of the Amaila bills. Local government is a people’s democratic right, and if the PPP/C chooses not to pass the bills in relation to it, or to postpone them, they should not have the cover that it is because the opposition did not pass their bills.
If the government does some backtracking on the offensive headline, it will no doubt get its anti-money laundering act; and if it swallows hard and accepts the four local government bills it will garner some kudos, and demonstrate to an otherwise sceptical public that contrary to appearances, it is interested in local democracy after all. On Amaila, it will have to swallow very hard indeed; in the end, country has to come before party.
