Dear Editor,

Your May 28 news article, ‘Forest protecting states must get timely resources – Jagdeo,’ with the strapline, ‘laments delay of Norway funds,’ pithily captures the true image and intention of Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo in his Hollywood role fighting climate change. And I must say, after reading the entire article, especially the part where he ‘laments the delay of Norway’s funds for Guyana,’ I was right all along that he is either truly self deceived or he is a persistent overreaching dreamer.

Read what President Jagdeo said to get my drift: “He pointed to Guyana’s US$250M forest preservation agreement with Norway saying that despite meeting all the conditions for the first year, Guyana has had difficulties in accessing the funds. An official from the Norwegian Ministry of the Environment had earlier told Stabroek News that an independent monitor will have to verify that Guyana has completed the enabling activities and depending on this review money will be disbursed but the US$30M promised this year is not a guaranteed sum. The President had said in Georgetown that the first disbursement had been expected earlier this year.” He is a daydreamer and LCDS is a pipe-dream!

Editor, the developed countries – including Germany, France, Norway, the US, Britain, Australia and Japan – meeting with 445 other countries in Oslo, Norway, pledged $4 billion to finance efforts aimed at Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) Plus through 2012. It was also reported that an agency to monitor disbursement of the aid and the performance of recipient countries will be up and running before UN climate talks start in Cancun, Mexico, later this year. The new monitoring agency reportedly would oversee individual agreements between countries to fight deforestation and educate local populations who live off forests, estimated at more than 1 billion worldwide, to do so in a sustainable way.

Among the countries mentioned as being huge beneficiaries are Indonesia and Brazil, with absolutely no mention made of Guyana. And here is the catch: the countries that are being targeted for financial aid from the developed nations are countries that actually have been engaging in deforestation activities, the burning of woodlands or the rotting of felled trees, as part of their need to survive. This does not fit Guyana’s description, as most of our population dwells along the coastal strip while our vast virgin forests remain largely untouched.

Indonesia, meanwhile, recently struck a $1 billion deal with Norway (yes, the same Norway that struck a deal with Guyana last year for a US$250M five-year deal) for a two-year moratorium on issuing new permits for forest destruction in Indonesia. Compare Indonesia’s two-year deal worth US$1B to Guyana’s five-year deal worth US$250M and immediately we understand that Guyana really is not as huge a factor in this climate change game as President Jagdeo has been making it out to be. Even Brazil, which has a rain forest that can swallow all of Guyana multiple times, struck a similar deal with Norway since the mid 1990s, and then as if to show how much of a factor Brazil is, that country also received a separate offer of US$1B last year from the World Bank towards ending deforestation.

Based on that, it will take a miracle if Guyana winds up with anything like a lion’s share instead of a lamb’s share of the US$4B, but the way the President has been carrying on about the pivotal role of those funds to his LCDS and our economy taking off, he may well be either overly optimistic or plain unrealistic. I think it may be the latter, unless he knows something the rest of Guyana doesn’t when he said recently that Guyana will be like the United States in a matter of time. If talk is all he has left to work with, then let him resign and name an interim successor who will do less talking, do more delivering and clean up the corruption in government.

Meanwhile, as mentioned at the top, a monitoring agency will be set up to oversee the disbursement of funds, and already the issue of transparency is accompanying the announced formation of the agency. Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, reportedly said the new monitoring agency would “decrease a trust deficit” that has stymied progress in wider climate talks, as wealthy countries express concern about how aid money is used in poor nations.

As I told the Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, whose office informed me he transmitted my letter to the relevant agencies, the Guyana government has a huge credibility problem when it comes to accountability and transparency with public funds. Unchecked systemic corruption has literally invaded even sectors/persons outside the government. Even the President’s office is openly violating the law that says it must deposit Lotto money into the Consolidated Fund and is spending the money without permission from the National Assembly. Which developed country will pump billions of dollars into Guyana under the Jagdeo presidency? If developed countries are smart, they will wait until President Jagdeo demits office in 2011, and a new leader who is committed to clean government and lawfulness takes over, before pumping huge sums of money into Guyana.

Britain’s Prince Charles also chipped in on the transparency issue by saying it was “key in brokering a binding global climate agreement,” adding that “In this period of increased stringency, governments will need to know that every dollar made available will be spent wisely in order to avoid any unnecessary duplication.” I still think he was being kind and economical with his words. Greenpeace, the environmental group, also welcomed the pledges of financing but warned that it remains unclear how the funds will be spent. Perhaps the explanation for the corruption lies in President Jagdeo’s own words: as democratically elected leaders, “we can only do what our people allow us to do.”

Editor, Guyana’s economy has the potential to soar, but the President has a tunnel vision that focuses exclusively on LCDS as the main plank for recovery and development, and that tunnel vision interferes with his peripheral ability to see, like Brazil and Suriname, that FDIs have greater proven potency than his LCDS gamble. His desperation is becoming deeply troubling as he tries valiantly to get his hands on big money to help salvage his legacy which is taking a beating because, as an economist, he has not delivered on the economy given its potential since becoming President in 1999. But while he seeks out big money, others are obviously worried about how monies disbursed will be spent.

Whether Norway is on to something about the corrupt government in Guyana that it needs to send someone to independently monitor Guyana’s performance thus delaying the release of a reduced sum (from US$50M to US$30M), I definitely think representatives from the United Nations Environment Programme and donor nations in the climate change fight should visit Guyana before pumping any money for the President’s so-called LCDS, because his monetary motive seriously does not match his management of the country or the world’s climate change message.

Yours faithfully,
Emile Mervin