Imagine a village where for generations, the inhabitants have dipped buckets in a river for their water. Then one day some government workers arrive in a truck and construct a community standpipe giving clean water (well cleanish because it’s Guyana). Supplies are a bit limited at first but more is promised and it’s a step up from the river. Celebrations ensue, multi denominational prayers are said for the pipe while villagers all agree the resource should be shared fairly. Everyone lives mostly happily ever after. Not quite…but then you know the rest of the story, don’t you? The villagers start squabbling over how many buckets each of them should receive and before you know it one group takes control of the standpipe and decides who gets what. Not a perfect allegory for our times but close enough.
The competition in Guyana over oil revenues and the benefits that flow from the industry’s presence here is simply a continuation of the historical and predominantly inter-ethnic competition for economic resources – land, concessions, contracts, government jobs and scholarships. However the magnitude of the oil revenues is a game changer making the competition all the more extreme.
The creation of a 22-member Public Accountability and Oversight Committee as defined in the Natural Resource Fund Act of 2019 was an inspired, possibly naive, attempt by the coalition government to mitigate some of this competition. Its members were to be chosen from a wide spectrum of specifically non-political organisations; a youth, a woman, a lawyer, a union leader, one representative from each RDC, even a journalist were to be on the committee whose role was activist in part to monitor and evaluate the compliance of the government over the management of the funds and to “facilitate public consultations on the fund’s management and the utilisation of the withdrawals”.
But it was more than that. It had the potential to promote a sense of shared ownership over the national patrimony flowing from what is a highly divisive energy sector. Could any of us imagine the example it would have set for inclusionary democracy if it were even only half functional? It was the embodiment of Article 13. The sheer size and hoped for diversity of the original committee was exactly its whole point. It was no accident. It was about inclusionary democracy at what is now the new crucial fiscal junction of our economy.
Perhaps the prospects of oversight and the example of citizen involvement and cooperation were what scared this government and the Vice President who has never, if ever, taken criticism/direction well. So it has adjusted the committee both in its composition and duties. There are now only nine members with one nominee from the National Assembly; two from the private sector; three from the religious community, two from the unions and one from the professions. It is easy to see how seven of the nine, all appointed by the President, would be de facto appointees of the government and how this might blunt the original intent of the committee. The committee no longer prepares its own budget and the members will simply be paid remuneration from time to time at the direction of the finance minister, further undermining its independence.
The government has neutered a key instrument of the legislation on the feeble grounds that “it is almost impossible to get anything done with 22 different organizations having oversight responsibility”. Actually the committee does not involve itself in the management of the fund directly. That will come down to a newly created board made up of three to five members, again one member being nominated by the National Assembly and one from the private sector – all appointed by the President.
The importance and perils of these decisions cannot be overstated. Oil revenues are going to, and are already, fundamentally changing the relationship between the political class and the people. Previously the political class raised taxes from the citizens. In return they were expected to use these wisely, not to squander them on white elephants, pocket them or divert them to friends and family. As taxpayers we held them accountable through the scrutiny of such offices as the Auditor General, the Public Accounts Committee, the Public Procurement Commission and through the valuable work of journalism. It was based on a moral authority that if we are being taxed we deserve to know how and where our money is being spent. Taxes create a bond between the people and the state.
It hasn’t really worked in Guyana and one reason for the frailty of this bond is the lack of participation in the tax system by citizens. It is worth noting the recent Auditor General’s report, in which he pointed out that only one in ten self-employed individuals paid any tax – 9,950 totalling $5.024 billion. PAYE submissions for the same period were $34B.
Now with the oil standpipe flowing the government has less need for our taxes. Next year they could rake in as much as US$1.3B from oil revenues and by 2024 much more than our current national budget. The fact that we the people are not allowed to know the estimates of our share suggests the government already understands the new dynamic. There is a palpable high handedness and a new impatience towards citizens who raise objections to their grand plans.
Refusing to consult with the Opposition Leader; Attorney General Nandlall’s attack on the Guyana Human Rights Association; the lack of proper consultations on mining at Marudi mountain and prior to COP26; the marginalisation of country agent Carl Greenidge on the Ministerial Advisory Committee to the ICJ matter; the refusal to bargain with the public service unions. This is a pattern of exclusionary democracy into which the scrapping of the oversight committee neatly falls.
Furthermore, not only does the government no longer need our taxes to run the economy they are now in a position of actually being able to hand out money to the people. The flow is reversed and as we have seen in recent months this is exactly what has been happening. Government as Father Christmas depending on who has been naughty or nice.
The original Public Accountability and Oversight Committee might have tamed some of this behaviour. Opposition Members of Parliament and civil society should strongly oppose the changes to the Natural Resource Fund Act of 2019.
