Latest update April 23rd, 2024 12:59 AM
Aug 22, 2012 Editorial
Just before the last elections, in a refreshing departure from the party line up to then, Donald Ramotar addressed the issue of corruption in Guyana.
We editorialised then: “Accepting what is blindingly clear to every other citizen, Mr. Ramotar, to his credit, acknowledges the presence of corruption while questioning its quantum and spread. He assured this newspaper in an interview, “We can improve the system and work for the elimination of corruption.”
This is a good beginning. No disorder or illness, individual or societal, can be rectified unless there is an acceptance of its existence. If elected, we will hold Mr. Ramotar to his word.”
Mr. Ramotar was elected as head of the Executive and has been President for the past eight months. If we are to review his record on dealing frontally with the issue of corruption, we must admit that it is far from stellar. In fact, some may say that he has deliberately chosen to dodge the issue. As everyone would know, this newspaper in responding to the previous administration’s demand for ‘proof’ of corruption had identified a host of instances and published the details.
We would have thought that the new administration might have chosen to select even one of the more egregious examples of corruption identified and conduct a forensic audit to ascertain the actual facts and to let the chips fall where they may. We would have been more than happy to be proven wrong: it would have meant that our hard earned tax dollars were not being frittered away, or worse, ending up in the pockets of corrupt officials.
But it was not only this newspaper that was disappointed at the refusal of the President to initiate substantive moves against corruption. Six months after his ascension to the Presidency, his long time fellow party executive and former Speaker of the National Assembly, Ralph Ramkarran, ruefully conceded that the evidence was such that he could only conclude corruption was ‘pervasive”. We have to note that Ramkarran is a lawyer and senior counsel and that the charge, was made in the PPP organ, Mirror, while the President remains the General Secretary of the party.
Around that time, a scandal broke in the public sphere over millions of dollars being funnelled into the bank account of an NCN executive for work done by the entity for GT&T. A subsequent investigation (we would not label it as a ‘forensic audit”) revealed that a higher official was also involved. The latter was allowed to resign and the other executive simply temporarily ‘suspended”. It is our firm opinion that a very clear-cut example of corruption by public officials was identified and proven but the perpetrators were allowed to escape with mere slaps on the wrists. This will certainly not lead to the ‘elimination of corruption’, according to the President’s promise.
In light of the President’s promise in general, and the involvement of NCN’s senior officials in a proven corruption scandal in particular, it was rather strange that the government chose to address the cancer of corruption in the political system through a live seven-part debate series hosted and aired over NCN. The debate would be conducted between representatives of the government, opposition and civil society organisations. The first ‘debate’ was held on Sunday and focused on the proposed Amaila Falls Hydro-electric project.
The debate confirmed exactly what we had feared: it was a sterile exercise focusing on theoretical issues without grappling with the nitty-gritty of real corruption that could provide guidance in avoiding same. The Opposition, of course, agreed with the premise of hydro power: who wouldn’t?
Yet the state-owned Chronicle trumpeted this agreement as the gist of the ‘debate’. The government’s representatives never conceded the point proven by this paper in a series of highly-publicised reports that even a cursory due diligence on Fip Motilall would have revealed his company’s total unfitness for the road-building contract to the falls.
Such a contract was fatally corrupt and the government should be ashamed to say it was later cancelled. Let us get real on corruption.
LISTEN HOW JAGDEO WILL MAKE ALL GUYANESE RICH!!!
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