It is now more than six months since President Bharrat Jagdeo gave the nation a personal undertaking that the alleged Fidelity/Customs fraud would be subjected to a thorough and transparent investigation and that insofar as allegations could be justified the parties involved – on both sides – would be made to answer under the law. What made the President’s pronouncement a matter of even greater public interest was his undertaking that the Fidelity/Customs issue apart, the investigation would also embrace the broader and more longstanding issue of alleged corruption within the Customs Department. The latter undertaking was significant only because of the widespread public view that corruption is commonplace in Customs transactions and that corrupt practices are so entrenched that those investigations that have taken place over the years have not even scratched the surface of corrupt practices.
This newspaper took the President seriously and has since been following the issue of the promised investigation closely. In fact, we published at least two editorials in which we made it clear that nothing should be allowed to stand in the way of the presidential directive and, moreover, that the outcomes of the enquiry should be placed in the public domain. One of the reasons why we took the President seriously was because we believed – and we have said it – that if he could make even modest headway in getting to the bottom of the quagmire of corruption in which our Customs Department appears stuck fast, he would have gone some considerable way towards persuading the public that his administration is serious about fighting official corruption.
Between the time of the President’s directive and now there have been at least two separate indications from the Office of the Auditor General that the completion of the enquiry and the preparation of the report were imminent, though we do not recall any official commitment regarding making the findings public. In the meantime sources close to the GRA have said that some functionaries who have been fingered in the alleged scam have either been dismissed from their posts or shifted to other assignments. But these rumours were being bandied about long before we learnt that the completion of the investigation was imminent, so that whatever action may have been taken against those believed to have been involved in the alleged scam could not have resulted from the findings of a report which was incomplete at the time that the action was taken. Still, there has been no word about the full and final completion of the report and about whether or not the findings of that report will be made public.
Leaving that aside for the moment, the fact that the investigation was ordered by the President personally, and that its purpose was to probe what we were told was a major scam, the investigation, surely, was not intended to facilitate sanctions against a handful of people deemed to have been involved in the matter while failing to address other issues that are at least as important as who dunnit.
For a start and as a matter of public record a report of that nature must determine first, that the alleged irregularities did, in fact, occur and seek to establish how much, if anything, was lost to the public treasury. Other issues germane to the investigation include exactly how the irregularity was perpetrated, whether or not it was facilitated by any internal weaknesses in the administration of the relevant systems within the GRA and if so, what, if anything, will be done to plug the loopholes that exist within the system.
Then, of course, there is the issue of the public’s right to know, not only in terms of their inherent entitlement to detailed information on a matter of this nature but also in terms of shoring up public confidence in the transparency of the political administration in matters that have to do with issues of trust and confidence.
Further, we have heard nothing whatsoever regarding whether or not the investigation being spearheaded by the Auditor General’s Office embraces the wider enquiry into suspected rackets and shakedowns within Customs which were part of the President’s original directive.
Even if a case can be made for more time to pursue the latter enquiry – which, by any stretch of the imagination, is likely to be a mammoth task – there can now be no really good reason for the failure, up to this time to complete the investigation into the Fidelity/Customs matter, make its findings public and implement its recommendations. On the contrary, the government has everything to lose by failing to produce a report up until now. After all, we need to hardly remind ourselves that it was the President himself who called for the enquiry and that he did so in an up front and deliberate manner that left the impression that he was prepared to let the chips fall where they will. If the directive of the President simply fizzes out into nothing then the weight of his words will inevitably be brought into question. Then again that not inconsiderable section of the populace that is decidedly cynical about the government’s commitment to fighting official corruption will feel even more justified in their present posture.
