Our fractured political system has militated against governments taking a robust stance against corruption. Where our two major political players are concerned, moral judgements are only applied to the other party, and corruption, it should be noted, is primarily a moral issue. And that pertains not only to the leadership of the two, but also to their supporters, who are often aware of corruption at some level on their own side, but will close their eyes to it to condemn what they regard as more egregious examples among their opponents. It is a kind of partisan compartmentalisation of ethical standards.
It is no surprise, therefore, that it is several of the smaller parties which have taken the matter of corruption on board in their campaigns, but then they are applying universal standards, not partisan ones. Where our two leviathans are concerned, as already said, it is merely a question of using the subject to denounce their main adversary and parade what they see as their own accomplishments in confronting the problem. So we have the government standing on its record of an improvement in Guyana’s ranking in the Transparency International (TI) corruption perceptions index, and the PPP/C touting that the coalition has found no evidence of major corruption during the pre-2015 period, at the same time levelling accusations against the current administration.
While Dr Troy Thomas, head of the local branch of TI, has cited the re-establishment of the Integrity Commission and the passing of whistleblower legislation as two of the things (among several others) accounting for this country’s improved rating on the index, it might be remarked that where the first of these examples is concerned, it has been reported that those politicians who have not yet submitted the required information to the commission come from the government benches. It is a simple illustration of the fact that laws on their own without enforcement are fairly meaningless.
Then there is the whistleblower legislation. Everyone remembers the case of the Fort Wellington nurse who commendably drew attention to an illegality in relation to an APNU councillor. She received no praise from the government for her actions; instead, she was transferred. Remembering this case, subsequent potential whistleblowers are inevitably going to hesitate before approaching the authorities, because they will believe that the act on the statute books is just a legislative decoration. Perhaps a sceptic could be excused for entertaining the conjecture that had the councillor in question come from the opposition then the outcome for the nurse might have been different.
As for President Granger’s main challenger, he has 19 criminal charges hanging over him. This is by no means to suggest that he is guilty of any of them. He is innocent unless a court of law determines otherwise, and the cases simply haven’t been heard yet. It is merely to point to the inappropriateness of someone in his position standing for the presidency if his party is truly committed to transparency and accountability. In such circumstances, appearances are as important as reality. What happens, for example, if Mr Irfaan Ali does become president? The head of state cannot be tried in court while in office, so is that what the PPP/C is banking on?
In terms of the appearance of integrity, there are also the questions surrounding Mr Ali’s academic credentials that still have not been answered. However, true to form, his candidacy has not appeared to represent an impediment to the party’s supporters.
Several writers have pointed out that TI’s index deals with the perception of corruption, which is not the same thing as the reality. Mr Pasha, in a letter to this newspaper last month, for example, wrote that the Corruption Perceptions Index needed to be supplemented by, among other things, the Auditor General’s Reports, the 2018 one of which has been leaked. He said that over the years 2015-18, “1,754 vouchers with a total value of $1.9 billion were not submitted for audits, gifts totalling $15.8 billion were received but an undetermined amount not accounted for properly by various agencies, [and there were] 144 cases of breaches to the Procurement Act that resulted in improper award of contracts, and 379 cases where the Auditor General found inadequate or weak internal controls.” He also referred to a recent IDB report which characterised Guyana’s government service as the most corrupt in the Caribbean.
This newspaper recently published data from the 2018 Auditor General’s report in relation to expenditures on the maintenance of vehicles in the various regions, which even to the eye of the most uninitiated appeared outrageous in several cases. At the very least, it suggested an absence of rational systems for the management of vehicle fleets, something which inevitably would invite the temptation of corruption. Neither of our major parties, however, has shown any interest in the matter of ensuring administrative efficiency, both to ensure the responsible disbursement of taxpayers’ money, and to help obviate corruption.
Mr Anand Goolsarran, in his column in this newspaper, had made reference to a complementary report issued last year by TI called the ‘2019 Global Corruption Barometer Report for Latin America and the Caribbean’. The organisation, he said, had carried out a survey during the first quarter of 2019 when citizens, inter alia, had been asked their views on corruption. 890 Guyanese participated, and it was found that 40% of those interviewed thought that corruption had increased in the previous 12 months and a similar percentage thought it had decreased.
This raises the question about who exactly had been interviewed. Where local surveys are concerned, the sample is everything, and in this instance one does not know how it was comprised. One is tempted to feel that if around 80% of those interviewed were fairly evenly divided between Indians and Africans, then this is the result one might expect to get for the reason stated earlier. And similarly, one has to raise an eyebrow at the finding that only 42% thought that officials of the Police Force were corrupt. A high percentage of car drivers, or even minibus passengers traversing our major coastal corridors might have augmented the total if asked to respond. There is the problem too that given our political history, some Guyanese are suspicious of surveys, and what they say will partly depend on who is asking the question and what the question is.
Whatever the perception of corruption is, and as Mr Goolsarran has pointed out, “[d]espite its improved performance on the TI index, Guyana still remained at the bottom of the table for the English-speaking Caribbean, this time joined by Trinidad & Tobago…” no serious writer on the subject has confidence we are making the kind of progress we need to. Mr Ralph Ramkarran, expressing his views in this newspaper, put it rather baldly: “Guyana’s procurement institutions are weak. Its anti-corruption and bribery laws are weak. Its anti-corruption institutions, where they exist are weak. Its natural resources fund can be plundered. Guyana is a sitting duck.”
In the end, as mentioned above, our politics makes our corruption problem more difficult to address. That said, constitutional reform in the shape of shared governance will not in and of itself solve the problem, as Lebanon and Iraq have discovered. A better legislative framework on its own will not solve the problem. The requisite institutions which are not insulated from the political directorate will not solve the problem. And if these are not manned by people of strength of character and integrity, the problem will also not go away.
TI had various recommendations, several of which related to political considerations and are valid. It is possible we might make more progress if there is a hung Parliament, and the presence of MPs from new parties could bring pressure to bear on a minority government for accountability. But as yet, we do not know if March 2 would produce that outcome. In any case, it would be a slow process, and in and of itself probably would not be enough, at least in the initial term, to produce the kind of transformation the public would like to see.
Aside from the need for free and fair elections, and all the other political issues, we need much stronger laws and autonomous anti-corruption institutions, and as Mr Goolsarran has said, the provision of adequate resources. Finding enough persons of integrity who are not afraid to stand up to politicians and others who would subvert such institutions may be a challenge. Our problem is that we have lived in a culture of lack of integrity for decades, and in all kinds of small ways in the past, even very decent people have succumbed to giving workers of corporations or agencies a ‘small piece’, for example, in order to get something fixed.
There is an increasing intolerance all over the world for corruption, and the evidence is that it is growing here too, although our political entities might not have noticed. The Global Corruption Barometer recorded that 82% of respondents thought that ordinary people could make a difference in the fight against corruption. Indeed they can. In the first instance, there could be campaigns to educate the public. In addition, given our troublesome political situation, ordinary people could perhaps start at the local level where their own party is in control, and hold the officials there for whom they voted, to account. That approach could then percolate upwards. Changing the anti-integrity culture is critical throughout all levels of the society, and politicians should not be allowed to think that it doesn’t matter what they do or don’t do, they can always depend on their supporters to back them.
