Establish Procurement Commission, Integrity Body swiftly

Sep 07, 2016 News

– essential to mitigating perceptions of corruption – Private Sector

The Private Sector Commission (PSC) is calling on the coalition administration for the swift establishment of various bodies. These include the Public Procurement Commission, the Integrity Commission and the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU).
The body stressed that it is important for the government to act quickly in order to operationalize those institutions, so as to mitigate perceptions of corruption and the furtherance of the evolution of a truly democratic society.
The PSC said that failure to so do will create an all-time lack of interest by the society in national politics.
Referring to the Procurement Commission and the Integrity Commission, the Private Sector said that these are not political institutions but entities which are meant to add to transparency and accountability. It stressed that good civil society members, regardless of how they are regarded politically, should be placed on these Commissions.
The Commission said, “We believe that the time has come for an end to the procrastination on these matters and for the president to give effect to the commitment they have made to the nation on the setting up of these Commissions.”
It added, “We believe that the failure to establish these entities poses a threat to legitimate business activities, creates unfair business to business competition and indeed is the reason why some legitimate businesses cannot stand up to new competition.”
The Private Sector Commission also urged for the Government to fully operationalize the Financial Intelligence Unit and to equip the entity with the necessary personnel to investigate and prosecute financial crimes.
The Body said that money laundering is a scourge all over the world that cannot be ignored in Guyana.
“It creates unfair advantages for legitimate companies by the lowering of prices beyond cost. It eliminates legitimate competition and feeds into the drug trade,” the PSC expressed.
The Commission appealed for the nation’s politicians to put Guyana and its legitimate taxpayers first.