Campaign financing – What Guyana needs

Jul 01, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

Hard Truths by GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – Guyana needs robust campaign financing laws. Laws without loopholes. Laws that mean business. The Hon. Attorney General, Mohabir Nandlall, SC knows this, and much more. He must move with all the energy and acumen and urgency that he can summon. A bill, a law, a new era of applying tight campaign financing law(s) across the board. I say to hell with the Opposition PNC and AFC if they will not get fully onboard.

Not just onboard, but fully so. And if the PPP/C with all the power and drive at its fingertips, as manifested so consistently, cannot bring itself to do so, then may it be damned to answer to the Americans and fail miserably at it. I start with scripture and ask pardon of nonbelievers.

“The love of money is the root of all evils.” Straight from the Bible, and it is not money. It is the love of money. That insatiable greed, that uncontrollable compulsion, like a terribly and dangerously hung-over binge drinker. Are you still reading and absorbing, Mr. Nandlall? The government must be done with the schemes and stratagems re: campaign financing. Get a law that has teeth. In a cash intensive society, campaign financing is one of the killers of clean governance. It is the easiest matter for anyone who can afford it in this country to slip a hundred million, or a half billion, into the hands of a political party.

For Guyanese who think that GY$500 million is a staggering sum, know this: it is not for those who give such sums (or close to them, or more than that). It is what comes back from a victorious government and leaders who are deeply indebted due to financing favours extended before, during, and after elections. In any campaign/political financing law that has meaning; there must be limits and no secrets. Full disclosure and buttressed by full documentation. Records kept by givers and records by receivers. A flaw is recognized right away: how to account for under the table, cash transactions, dark money donations.

Men with bags, trusted couriers with suitcases, of cash. It is that kind of society in Guyana, and it is not changing anytime soon. This is what fuels political parties during elections, helps them to propagandize and proselytize. TV messages are expensive, and so also are what must be paid to foot soldiers and fence sitters. Or those in the opposition that must be bought to secure either electoral triumph or a special kind of bureaucratic partnership. Ever think why, outside of the mass of politicians, why the public service at very high levels has earned such a dubious reputation, an ugly distinction that many in the public domain suspect, but only those in government know.

After elections is crucial for donors and financiers. The bigger ones anticipate the biggest rewards. They get it by truckloads, and those rewards are part of a vicious and destructive cycle. A cycle is a circle, and it works like this.

The campaign financiers give big and get the biggest plums. The people’s (budgeted) money is channeled via contracts to campaign financiers, even if such contracts must be forced to favour them. Criteria and conditions can take a hike, be damned. There are all those unanswered and unsettled questions about the tender board, the procurement watchdogs, and the way that business is executed. Guyanese read about those who get public work contracts that they shouldn’t have.

Lost in the shuffle are those who failed to win a contract, though they qualified. I contend that this is how campaign financing corrupts the tender award process, when the inexplicable happens, and when leading political stars pass those hot potatoes to others to run with the fallouts. It is part of the game that commences with campaign/political financing. Estimates that have no basis. Winning bids that mock honesty and principled duty.

Then, the flow of political kickbacks that keep the circle of corruption going, and which began with campaign financing. From giver to taker. From political leadership taking to government giving to successful recipient returning a portion of what feeds the machine, the beast. Again, I say it: campaign financing, political donating, is a leading component in the culture of corruption that consumes this country and its taxpaying citizens.
What starts out, or is naively interpreted, as feathering one’s nest is much more treacherous and costly than what is held as a standard commercial practice. Despite its layers of laws, checks and balances, and company of honest watchdogs, even a mighty society as the United States has its challenges with campaign/political financing, and it is a way less cash-centered country. Guyana as it is presently, therefore, is open territory for the worst excesses of campaign/political financing.

My understanding is that both major political parties have their ideas of what strict campaign financing law(s) should look like. It stands to reason why that is so. Take away the easy millions (hundreds of such) and the television and podium must be foregone for the muddy streets and distant villages. It is heavy going with much foot slogging, tireless handshaking and appealing and selling oneself. In person. Rich campaign financing and overflowing party coffers allow outsourcing, media spinning and deceiving, and little leadership accounting. Guyana needs to get some basics in place: limits. Disclosure. Documentation. Penalties for violators. For both donors and receivers.

All of Guyana’s political leaders need to stop talking through their noses (or their back ends) and start giving honesty a try. Start with a clean and comprehensive political financing law. Then enforce it to the fullest. Campaign financing: do something, let it be the real thing.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

AFC, Attorney General, corruption, financing laws, Guyana, Guyanese money, Hard Truths by GHK Lall, Mohabir Nandlall, PNC, PPP/C

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