How the government handles the establishment of the broadcasting authority and the assigning of radio licences will make crystal clear whether the Office of the President is prepared to depart from the lawlessness of the Jagdeo administration and whether the opposition majority in Parliament counts for anything. Given the murky manner in which the applications for long-awaited radio licences were handled and the obvious bias in the hurried selections before Mr Jagdeo demitted office, the only reasonable decision that could be made in this matter is for the allocations to be quashed and for the process to be held de novo but only when a properly constituted broadcasting authority is in place. Neither the government nor the opposition seems to have a plan as to how to proceed or recognises the importance of expediting this process considering the PPP/C’s pledge from its 1992 manifesto to liberalise radio licensing.
What happens to the Access to Information law which the Jagdeo government shamelessly ignored and which in its last manifestation in Parliament was completely unworkable will be another test of both the Ramotar administration and the opposition-controlled Parliament. The law whenever brought into operation requires an independent commissioner not picked by the subject minister/President and a retinue of information officers in ministries, departments, regions and agencies to process applications for access to information.
What it also requires is a total transformation in the culture of the current government. This government, having inherited much from its predecessor, is not inclined to willingly release information on important deals and commitments most probably because of the former administration’s proclivity to engage in transactions that are not above board and because the subjects of these contracts often have things to hide and believe that the less that is revealed and known makes them safer. The Amaila roads and hydropower contract are prime examples of the government’s secrecy and wrongheaded decisions particularly as it relates to the access roads contracts for Mr Fip Motilall.
Equally troubling is the growing number of imposed deals by the Chinese government which completely supersede the local procurement framework and rule out any involvement by the average Guyanese in monumental decisions. The best example of this is the arrangement for the planned massive expansion of the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Timehri. Undoubtedly all Guyanese will like to see Timehri’s airport on the scale of Piarco but does it make sense or will it be a gleaming monument to the anaemic traffic? Whatever the answer, surely this project required some deep engagement of stakeholders locally on feasibility and environmental issues before any decision was made.
There are more parochial issues as they relate to the government’s culture of secrecy but which are just as important to the every-day flow of information between the government and governed. When the news is bad, the relevant officials – as is usually the case – go on a walkabout, simply refuse to take calls or obfuscate. An example of this was Minister Sukhai’s hassar fiasco which was recounted in yesterday’s editorial and which project exposed the penchant for false information from ministries perhaps on the calculated but mistaken presumption that Tobago Hill in the northwest was too far removed from Georgetown for an inquisitive reporter to visit. Minister Sukhai and her officers will undoubtedly be more careful in the future about the sweeping saccharin statements they issue in Georgetown about remote Amerindian communities and bountiful harvests.
The minister and her ministry have other companions in Georgetown. Before he assumed his role as the lead Minister of Health in the Ramotar administration, Minister Bheri Ramsaran was not fond of speaking to the independent media. He is far more comfortable in the cocoon of the state media and friendly television stations. To his credit, his predecessor, Minister Ramsammy was widely available to the media and could only be faulted for healthy doses of spin and political invective. Minister Ramsaran is definitely in a different class.
Last week there were at least four urgent matters that he needed to address but which he was incommunicado about. Not even his budget presentation delved deeply into these matters. Not in any particular order of importance, the first was the revelation by Mr Charles Ceres of the late and scandalously worded invitation to his firm to undertake geotechnical work at the site for the specialty hospital. Not only should this invitation have been issued long ago but the parameters of the invitation betrayed unprofessionalism and reflected the slipshod nature of government business. Minister Ramsaran has not been available to defend the correspondence from his ministry and explain why geotechnical work was not done earlier. Perhaps his Permanent Secretary might oblige.
Second, the staggering 80.5% failure rate at the nursing school begs the question of whether the minister will go ahead with plans for a new intake despite longstanding concerns that there were entrenched problems at the school which needed to be tackled before more students were taken in.
A failure rate of that magnitude would lead to most institutions being shuttered and would raise grave concerns about the impact of nursing education on the public health system.
Third, a report in SN exposed the disgrace that there were major problems at the supposed state- of-the-art Linden Hospital including eight months worth of sharps stowed in a most unhygienic manner waiting to be disposed of since a key burner is out of order. The ultrasound machine is out of order, plumbing is a problem and pieces of a section of the building had crumbled. How can a supposed $2.2B building and facility be in this state? Minister Ramsaran and the regional health department have a lot of answering to do.
Then there is the distressing case of a pregnant girl, Miss Tasya Joseph and her unborn child dying en route to the Georgetown Public Hospital from the Linden Hospital. The case had all of the attributes of poor care that characterized the series of maternal deaths in 2010 and which series resulted in an investigation of the causes and a pledge by the government to make strenuous efforts to prevent recurrences. Miss Joseph who suffered from anaemia was left at the aforementioned Linden Hospital for three days apparently without the level of care that was required. When her situation worsened, an attempt was made to transport her to Georgetown but it was too late. Why, again, should a supposed `state-of-the-art’ hospital have to refer such a case to Georgetown and only after three long days?
In 2010, Cabinet had cause to berate both Ministers Ramsammy and Ramsaran over the upsurge in maternal deaths and record-keeping associated with the cases. We wonder if the lesson has been learnt in this case. As a matter of urgency and considering the pledges from 2010 to do something about these cases, Minister Ramsaran should report in detail to Cabinet and the public about what happened to Miss Joseph, where the blame, if any, lay and what is to be done. There is much explaining for Minister Ramsaran to do this week.
