Given the deep-seated divisions and stalemate that have characterized the 10th parliament, any type of all-party agreement is music to the ears and welcoming news to all Guyanese. The government, APNU and the AFC must therefore be applauded for the spirit of compromise on a motion for the restoration of the subvention to the Critchlow Labour College (CLC). Sadly, the compromise fell short of what its own intentions were said to be and is therefore defective. It has already been rejected by the Trades Union Congress (TUC). One hopes that given the spirit of the compromise that all sides in Parliament would be prepared to revisit the issue of the subvention and in consultation with the TUC.
By all accounts, the CLC, the educational arm of the TUC, has performed yeoman service since 1967 in providing educational opportunities to persons and school leavers from all backgrounds. Several current members of parliament are alumni. Like so many other institutions in this land battling to cope with the daily privations, things can go wrong, and for some time the CLC has encountered financial difficulties and questions about accountability for funds provided by the state have been raised primarily by the government.
The subtext, of course, is that the TUC has traditionally been viewed by the PPP/C as an adversary and rivalling the breakaway union movement, the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Guyana (FITUG) which the government promotes heavily. At various stages of its present 21-year tenure, the PPP/C has been at deep odds with the TUC and matters came to a head eight years ago when subventions were cut to the CLC on the grounds of accountability concerns. Those accountability issues have not been spelt out in detail and tested. CLC has still, however, managed to stay afloat and to find alternatives to government funding.
So when Parliament debated a motion on February 27th in the name of Alliance for Change MP Mr Trevor Williams for the restoration of its subvention, it was unclear how the government would react given the trenchant inflexibilities that have pervaded Parliament. The debate ran true to form with acrimonious exchanges on all sides. Then, government back-bencher Mr Manzoor Nadir, a former Labour Minister, signalled that government was willing to support the motion if there was an equal number of members from both the TUC and FITUG on CLC’s Board. This proposal was not new. The requisite amendment was then proposed and the 61 members present voted in favour. In an ideal world this would have been a reasonable and mature compromise pointing in the direction of further opportunities for cross-party consensus. Unfortunately, these circumstances are not ideal and in this case the PPP/C got exactly what it wanted, which is not a problem if it negotiated cleverly, except that its compromise will not deliver accountability.
What in the world led any of the 61 members of Parliament to believe that the placing of four FITUG members on the board of the CLC would enhance accountability at the institution? That is not to say the FITUG couldn’t necessarily muster four individuals who would be able to scrutinize the financial transactions at the institution. The problem is that FITUG’s politicized rivalry with the TUC eclipses all else and once its members marched into the TUC compound on Woolford Avenue to take up their posts on the CLC board it would be presented and promoted as another historic victory for the PPP against one of its old foes. This is all about politics and opportunism. Can anyone in FITUG today with a straight face explain how the GLU – the union of Critchlow and late President Desmond Hoyte – ended up in the arms of FITUG and only after Mr Hoyte’s passing? The acrobatics that enabled that must have been stupendous and worthy of Olympian standards.
Aside from the fact that Parliament has no business attempting to alter by-laws and articles of association of private institutions and therefore the CLC itself would have had to agree to these changes, there was no refinement in the parliamentary debate of what constituted accountability. Surely it had to entail a robust internal audit function to oversee all internal transactions at the CLC, clear accounting for the state’s subventions and up-to-date accounts with clean audit opinions. These things can be achieved in certain ways. The government would have been well in order to insist that the subvention was conditional on the most scrupulous attention to clean accounts at the CLC, and a group of MPs could have worked with the TUC on this. That is a much better formula for accountability than the political solution of four FITUG members.
Since the matter has now been raised and the word accountability is so easily but selectively bandied about by the government, the National Assembly should examine what accountability standards are required for subventions by the state to organisations like the CLC and what criteria should be considered in deciding which organizations are worthy of subventions. This is a matter that should be urgently addressed considering that the 2014 budget will be presented soon.
