Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
May 05, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
Kaieteur News – Guyana needs stronger and more vibrant civil society organisations. Had our civil society been stronger, there was no way that the country’s main political parties, the PNC/R, the PPP/C and the AFC, could have escaped public sanction for their indifference towards renegotiation of the oil contracts.
Ironically, it is a handful of civil society organisations and personalities, including this newspaper’s publisher, Glenn Lall, that have been spearheading efforts to call the government to account in relation to the management of the oil and gas sector. But these civil society organisations lack the moral authority to criticise anyone much less the government.
For five months when the country is at standstill due to the blatant attempt at rigging the elections, these so-called civil society organisations refused to come out and condemn the attempt to distort the result of the elections. Most of them turned the proverbial blind eye to the blatant plot to return Guyana to political dictatorship – a development which more than anything else threatens the freedom of civil society.
Guyana was on the brink of becoming a pariah state. It would have been an international outcast and internally the rigging would have granted a licence to the government to run roughshod over people’s freedom and rights.
Yet, not a squeak was heard from some of these organisations. But now that the PPPC has returned, they are very vocal – a development which will lend to the perception that these so-called civil society organisations are more anti-PPP than pro-Guyana.
Some of them have now come together to constitute what is now called the Policy Forum. It recently came out against the appointments of two members of the Board of the Natural Resource Fund.
Policy Forum criticised the appointment of UK-based David Lammy and New York-based Carolyn Rodrigues. Its criticism was based because they were non-residents but because of their current occupations. Lammy is a member of the British parliament and Rodrigues is Guyana’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations.
Policy Forum questioned how Lammy, having sworn loyalty to the Queen, can avoid being in a conflict of interest. In relation to Rodrigues, it disingenuously said that Guyana’s foreign policy is skewed in favour of the extractive industry.
Interestingly, it did not criticise the private sector’s representative on the Board. Surely, the private sector is even more skewed towards the extractive sector than government’s foreign policy. But this shows the glaring contradictions of Policy Forum and its desperate attempt to manufacture criticisms for the sake of publicity.
What was most revealing was that Policy Forum did not criticise the appointment of the Chairman of the Board, even though he is employed with the same government that employs Carolyn Rodrigues. So why did the Policy Forum avoid criticising the appointment of the Chairman?
This column had pointed out that the Natural Resources Fund Act (NRFA) governs the management of the Fund and appoints to the Board. The NRFA requires that the Fund be managed in accordance with the Santiago Principles.
One of those principles is that the governing body (the Board) should be so structured to allow it to exercise effective, independent and objective judgment. The Santiago #16 is explicit that the governance framework should be independent of the owners of the Fund. In our case, the owners of the Fund are the government.
This column had pointed out that two of the recent appointees were employed by the government. One, the Chairman, was at one time listed as the Special Assistant to the President of Guyana and, up to the time of his appointment to the Board, was employed in the Office of the President. The other, Rodrigues, as mentioned above, holds one of the top diplomatic appointments in the country.
Policy Forum opted to criticise the latter and not the former. And do you know why? They refused to criticise the appointment of the Chairman of the Board because he is their friend and colleague. He has been around the civil society circuit for some time and would have been known and respected by many of those who are now pontificating on principles.
It shows the hypocrisy of Policy Forum. To paraphrase what Michael Corleone said to the senator in the 1974 Godfather 2 movie, “We’re both part of the same hypocrisy, senator, but never think it applies to my family.” The principles which they tout do not apply to their circles.
Guyanese have to beware of those who come pretending to act on their behalf. Many of these organisations have their own biases, class and otherwise and just like the government they scrutinize, they too are not above reproach.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)
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