Several civil society groups yesterday expressed discomfort with what they see as the government’s increasing lack of accountability especially as it pertains to the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) and the extractive sectors.
“There is no longer any official institution or agency to which anyone – including those sympathetic to the administration – can turn for an objective assessment of major issues affecting the future of Guyana”, they said in a press release. Further, entities such as Parliamentary Sectoral Committees, Regional governments, and Neighbourhood Democratic Councils are not functioning as they should, leaving Guyanese in the dark about who to trust and what to believe.
The organisations endorsing the release are namely: Community-Based Rehabilitation, East Coast Development Committees, Guyana Human Rights Association, Guyana Organization of Indigenous Peoples, Guyana Society for the Blind, Guyana Workers Union, Policy Forum Guyana Inc, Red Thread, Transparency Institute Guyana Inc, and Ursuline Sisters in Guyana.*
According to the release, “The essence of accountability is the provision of trustworthy information, i.e. facts that enable free, prior and informed consent. Currently citizens rely on sources pieced together by the media, anecdotes from an Energy Conference, remarks to visiting dignitaries, or the latest foreign investor unveiling his plans.”
The release put forward three examples of what it considered to be instances of government not being accountable. 1) The “stripping” of the Public Oversight & Accountability Committee (POAC) from the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) Act; 2) reducing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) “to a rubber-stamp,” and 3) the pending appointment of a “high-profile party person” to head the Guyana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (GYEITI).
And in the case of the Parliamentary opposition, it opines that the government’s reason for not engaging in even the ‘pretense of consultation” appears to be that the APNU+AFC forfeited any right to accountability as “punishment” for the five-month electoral impasse in 2020. Adding, “With respect to civil society, long-standing ideological suspicion by the ruling party of groups not under party political control has translated into ‘no one voted for them’ and therefore they have no right to accountability.”
As far as the groups are concerned, the control of information in an ethnically and politically polarized society, “in which one side is inclined always to give the rulers who look like them benefit of the doubt and the other side to always suspect mischief” is particularly toxic. Such an approach, it charges, would be unacceptable even were such “opaque: decision-making limited to routine political matters, “However, when dealing with future-of-society issues such as a gas pipeline, a controversial hydroelectric scheme, expanded oil exploration, and the depositing of 30 tons-and-counting of toxic wastes daily on the coastland, the current decision-making process is nothing less than frightening and intolerable.”
The release zeroed in on a particular agency, stating, “It is difficult to identify a more relevant agency to our current situation in Guyana than GYEITI. It has a clear and limited mandate to contract leading international accountants to produce vital extractive sector information in an annual Report… However, its primary characteristic of trustworthiness is now under threat.”
Mention was made of the person recently identified as the next director of the GYEITI, describing him as someone who “is not known to have competencies in business, economics, finance or the extractive sector.”
And if that were not damning enough, it added, “The absence of required qualifications is aggravated by the fact that his employment record in Guyana has been associated with positions usually reserved for persons trusted by the ruling party.” The release posited that in small politically and ethnically divided states such as Guyana, governed by a “very slim one seat ‘majority’”, it is “imperative” to ensure that the head of the GYEITI Secretariat is both competent in the specifics of the job as well as capable of objectively managing diverse stakeholder’s interests.
The release did not identify the candidate but the government has confirmed that the next Director of the GYEITI will be Dr Prem Misir.
The Natural Resources Fund also came under fire for having its credibility “fatally compromised by party-dominated decision-making.” Also, the replacement of the Minister of Finance with the Presidency in the NRF Act 2021, an Office immune to prosecution, was described as “troubling,” noting that in such circumstances the transparent and trustworthy information all Guyanese have a right to expect about the Fund will be sacrificed.
The release referenced a paragraph on page eight of a recent Report for USAID “Democracy, Human Rights and Governance Assessment Guyana” which was released a few days ago and which speaks to its concerns.
“It is incumbent on the government, parliament and the citizens to reach across the racial and ethnic divide to come to a common vision of a new national development plan… political favoritism towards one ethnic group is especially worrisome as Guyana is on the cusp of unprecedented economic transformation.”
As such, the endorsing organisations of this statement are calling on the government “specifically,” to modify the legislation governing the NRF and to ensure selection processes in both the NRF and GYEITI are credible, transparent, trustworthy, and in the national rather than partisan interest.
*Editor’s Note: While the National Toshaos Council was initially listed as being among the groups endorsing the statement, Policy Forum Guyana (PFG) on Thursday clarified that “Due to poor voice communication with South Rupununi, a misunderstanding occurred that led to the name of the National Toshaos Council (NTC) being included. As a result, it withdrew the name of the Council and apologised for the error.
