Dear Editor,
On March 1st, the state owned Guyana Chronicle carried an editorial, “Investors’ confidence,” highlighting a shortlist of projects in which local and foreign investors have ploughed their monies over the past few months.
On the surface, it would seem to be a positive public grading of the government’s performance in facilitating such needed economy boosting undertakings, but after reading extracts from the extensive US’ annual State Department International Narcotics Control Strategy Report on Guyana, I noted a few points, but five of which I’d like to briefly address.
1. That the informal (also commonly called the parallel) economy is 40 to 60 percent of the formal economy has to be extremely troubling. This means the Jagdeo government has no serious economic plan that is capable of turning around Guyana’s fortunes via globally acceptable economic norms. Ergo, take away foreign remittances and money laundering and Guyana sinks in a wink.
2. That the drug trafficking and money laundering appear to be benefiting the Guyanese economy, particularly the construction sector. I’d like to caution government and Guyanese against rushing to recognize and praise investors in the construction industry who cannot provide a legal paper trail on how they came by their funds for investments in Guyana.
3. That despite Guyana being known as a major trans-shipment country for cocaine to the Caribbean, North America and Europe, this was not reflected in major drug busts at home. That small couriers were intercepted at the CBJ airport is so negligible, it is preposterous for local authorities to ever think they can use those minor arrests as testimony they are doing an effective drug-fighting job.
4. That despite the fact that no government official is known to be involved in any aspect of drug smuggling operations, government, for reasons best known to it, failed to implement fundamental policies emanating from the 2005-2009 National Drug Strategy Master Plan that was launched in June 2005. This likely led to an unavailability of human and material resources to effectively combat the drug scourge, and probably created an enabling environment in which law enforcement officers became greatly corrupted.
As an aside, even if we want to believe no government official is knowingly involved in any aspect of drug smuggling operations, don’t the material gains – new houses and cars – by certain government officials in a rather short period of time raise suspicion of the effects of money laundering or other forms of corruption? If called on, can these officials produce documents showing how their new assets were acquired?
I’ll tell you why this particular issue irks me a great deal. This government says it is a socialist government and that it cares about the people who are suffering, but when we look at how its officials are living, compared with about five or ten years ago, and who actually are living the high life in Guyana, this government cares only about itself and a handful of friends and supporters of a certain social and economic class. Yet, several poor or ordinary people are being sentenced daily for crimes committed to sustain themselves economically.
5. That the government still cannot seem to find some common ground on which it can facilitate the US Drug and Enforcement Agency to set up shop in Guyana to help monitor and stamp out the drug scourge.
It also makes little or no sense for the government to accuse the US of not providing it with the resources needed to help with the local drug fight when, like its fellow Caricom member, Trinidad, it could have granted the US DEA permission to operate on its soil.
Wasn’t Roger Khan taken from Suriname to Trinidad where US DEA agents took over and flew him to the US? Maybe this is what the Jagdeo regime doesn’t want: the US DEA, while operating out of Guyana, being able to fly Guyanese involved in drug smuggling to America to face trial for conspiracy to export drugs from Guyana to America.
I don’t know if the Jagdeo government’s formal hiring of Mr. Bernie Kerik to, among other things, advise it on drug smuggling (and money laundering spin-offs) in Guyana, is a strategy to placate the US DEA. But with Mr. Kerik’s legal and ethical baggage in America, won’t the US DEA view him with reserve thereby negating any impact statement he may make to vindicate the PPP regime in the fight to end the drug scourge?
When the US delivers its next annual report, I’d like to see what difference Mr. Kerik’s advice made in this area, or if this is just another political gimmick like the much touted and long overdue police reforms that should have been addressing the drug scourge.
In summation, I believe that Guyana’s economic recovery and development are dependent on a vibrant private sector, inclusive of foreign investors.
And I do believe there are genuine investors in Guyana and overseas who want to make a vital contribution to Guyana’s socio-economic health. They should be welcomed with irresistible incentives if they can help sustain long-term job creation.
But it is unfair for them to have to compete in an environment where other shady investors openly launder their ill-gotten gains by under pricing or underselling their competition, simply because there is a guaranteed supply of illicit cash for shady investors.
While what is playing out in Guyana may convince some, including the editors at Guyana Chronicle, that Guyana is on the right track, here is a reality check: when the informal economy is 40 to 60 percent of the formal economy, then not only is money laundering a dangerous presence; so is the potential for dangerous crimes because money laundering, and drugs and guns smuggling go hand in glove.
Yours faithfully,
Emile Mervin
