President Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday fended off criticism of the benefits for former Presidents, saying they have been enshrined in law to ensure transparency about the entitlements, almost all of which had been enjoyed by his predecessors.
“Almost ninety-nine percent of the provisions were already enjoyed by former Presidents and this is what I have found hypocritical,” he said of the criticism of the Former Presidents (Benefits and Other Facilities) Act, adding later, “I don’t know if it’s excessive, but that was what was there all along.”
Since the President assented to the law last month, the benefits and facilities provided for under the legislation include payment of utilities at the place of residence in Guyana, the services of personal and household staff as well as those of clerical and technical staff, if requested, full-time personal security and services of the Presidential Guard Service, the provision of motor vehicles owned and maintained by the State, toll free road transportation in Guyana, an annual vacation allowance equivalent to the cost of two first class return airfares provided on the same basis as that granted to serving members of the judiciary and a tax exemption status identical to that enjoyed by a serving President.
Jagdeo told reporters yesterday that both late former Presidents Desmond Hoyte and Janet Jagan benefitted from similar concessions, by custom and practice. He explained that the decision to enact the legislation followed the discovery that many benefits enjoyed by former presidents as well as public officials, including judges, are charged on the Consolidated Fund solely on the basis of a series of Cabinet decisions that were made over the last twenty to thirty years. These include pensions, security as well as utilities. “This shouldn’t have happened,” he explained, adding “You should have a statute and only by statute should you charge sums or make charges against the Consolidated Fund so we thought it best to enshrine benefits enjoyed in a transparent way, because although this was being enjoyed most people didn’t know.”
Further, he noted that with the enactment of the law, Cabinet cannot change the provisions without recourse to the National Assembly, where the public process would ensure transparency. Before the Bill was passed, he added, the Cabinet could confer any benefit to any person without any transparency. “What this does is that it makes everything transparent,” he said, “We have to do the same in other areas because many benefits that are routinely enjoyed by people, over the years, are done on the basis of decisions, just decisions made at the executive level.”
From its introduction the law met with intense public scrutiny and it had a thorny passage in the National Assembly, where both the PNCR-1G and the AFC unsuccessfully sought to have caps placed on the entitlements that would be available through the legislation. (GAP/ROAR was the only party to support the Bill in the National Assembly.)
In the days leading up to the parliamentary debate of the Bill, the benefits proposed for former presidents had been the subject of a public relations war between the government and the main opposition.
The PNCR-1G, in a full page ad in the national newspapers condemned the bill as an attempt by President Jagdeo to secure “luxurious living at the expense of taxpayers” through legislation. However, the PPP/C administration launched a campaign to defend the legislation, while accusing the main opposition of double standards and duplicity.
But Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh, who piloted the bill through its final stages, emphasised that it was a “statute-based approach” to enshrine benefits and facilities that have thus far been provided for through custom and practice at the discretion of both the current and previous administrations.
During the debate, PNCR-1G MP Winston Murray told the Assembly that the main opposition endorsed the principle that the bill sought to enshrine but wanted specifics and he called on the government to send it to a special select committee in order to secure consensus. “If you want a statute-based approach, you should specify the benefits,” he argued. Murray urged that the benefits and provisions offered under the bill be detailed with greater specificity, complaining that it lacked exact meaning in a number of instances.
While Singh said the benefits outlined in the bill were based on what has been offered to former presidents and in some instances what has been requested, Murray expressed concern about the open-endedness inherent in the bill, pointing out that it did not give any specific numbers. In this regard, he objected to clause 3 of the bill, which states that the minister may make regulations for giving effect to its provisions. He questioned also whether similar amenities were indeed given to late former presidents Arthur Chung or Desmond Hoyte, citing the provisions for an unspecified number of vehicles and the services of the presidential guard. “We certainly didn’t give him anything like this,” he said, referring to Chung. “Maybe we were too mean… but that doesn’t mean we should go overboard now and try to give away the public purse.”
Murray also registered his concern about the proviso for tax exemptions on par with serving presidents, noting that they receive tax-free incomes. AFC MP Khemraj Ramjattan meanwhile declared that with the bill the PPP/C was betraying the legacy of late former President Cheddi Jagan, saying the founders of the party had urged against extravagance. “It makes me feel the ‘PPP’ is now ‘Perks, Privilege and Power,’” he said, “I won’t tell you what the ‘C’ is for-corruption is all over the place.”
He also argued for the bill to include caps, questioning how it could be considered accountable and transparent when it leaves major discretion positive to former presidents and negative to taxpayers.
