Dear Editor,
I readily admit my ignorance on the finer points of political horse-trading and backroom deals so perhaps my friends in the Alliance For Change can help me in a certain regard. When the motion to cut the Sports and Arts Fund was raised by the AFC, I was of two minds. I’ve campaigned for more money to be put into the development of the arts, writing in particular, and any cut in government arts funding should naturally be against this development. I, however, had to weigh that against the reality of how arts funding is disbursed in Guyana and I saw the motion to cut in the same spirit of forced accountability that was behind the NCN and GINA budget cuts.
It was to my great surprise therefore when the AFC on Thursday did an about face and withdrew their motion to cut the Fund, with Moses Nagamootoo going on to praise the Minister of Culture’s past efforts in promoting the development of the Arts in Guyana.
With regard to CARIFESTA, Anthony and the government are yet to release an iota of audited information on the expenditure for CARIFESTA X (2008) which Guyana hosted. I’ve repeatedly asked for the Ministry to publish criteria for selection of delegations for Guyana’s representation at CARIFESTA and the inter-Guianas Cultural Festival and there has not been a single response. Indeed, we are four months away from CARIFESTA to be held in Suriname and while I am fully aware that the Ministry is engaged in planning for the trip, the public has not had a single indication of who is going, to do what, and on what basis they were selected. How is it the AFC can argue in one breath that there should be transparency and a merit-based approach to the award of public contracts, for example, yet leave ample room for obscurity in the management of $100 million of taxpayer money?
With regard to the Caribbean Press, it is absurd that Mr. Nagamootoo in his sole response to me should parrot Anthony’s statement on who was published by the Press. Of all the names called, the bulk have had associations with the Press – Dr. Ian McDonald has been known to be associated with its establishment, as has Petamber Persaud, and Sasenarine Persaud is Petamber’s brother. Cyril Dabydeen is the cousin of Dr. Dabydeen, the effective head of the Press, and Cedric Castello is Dr. Dabydeen’s friend. And then there is the issue of Minister Anthony’s daughter having had a book published by the Press, of which no satisfactory explanation has been given.
Another perspective on this is that most of those published have had established writing careers – if it is that the Press and the Fund (which we are now learning funds it) are developmental mechanisms, why is there a complete absence of emerging local writers without any connection to the people behind the Press? Anthony cited 60 books by “contemporary” writers being produced by the Press – who are these people and how were they selected, by what mechanism?
Now to the Guyana Prize for Literature. Earlier this year, the Ministry of Culture awarded $17 million for the hosting of this year’s Prize, as we were informed by GINA, and under the Fund’s budgetary allocation, [a further] $11.6 million was approved. This year, only the local (not the Caribbean aspect) of the Prize was announced, the Prize money of which totals US $21,000 or $4.2 million. On the surface of it, we therefore have a total of $28.6 million allocated to run a writing award that the payout of which is only 1/7th of that figure? Even if we were to work with the $17 million figure, that would mean the Guyana Prize costs thrice as much to run as the Prize money awarded. And Mr. Nagamootoo finds this commendable?
With all these issues having been ventilated in the public domain in this year alone, how is it that Mr. Ramjattan and Mr. Nagamootoo and the rest of the AFC parliamentary representation found Anthony’s answers to be satisfactory? Indeed, Nagamootoo went so far – on no evidence – to praise the initiatives under the Fund as unsung successes.
Mr. Nagamootoo points out the Fund may not be legally constituted yet chose not to insist on legal establishment – which leads to the issue of governance – as a prerequisite for releasing the funds. If a lick and a promise were all that were required of the PPP with regard to fairness and equitable allocation of state resources and money, then the AFC should have approved the budgetary allocations to NCN and GINA, which are both legally established entities.
Which brings me to the manner of approval – if the AFC found the Minister’s actions satisfactory, why not vote in approval for the Fund to go through? Why abstain en bloc?
From my perspective, what we have here can only be one or both of two things – an orchestrated duplicity on the part of the AFC to allow the Fund to go through for whatever secret reason; and/or a shocking and perhaps willful ignorance of everything that has gone wrong with Anthony’s management of cultural policy, from discrimination, nepotism, myopia and an almost complete lack of accountability.
I don’t believe that the AFC, its Parliamentary representation in particular, needs to be reminded that they have been afforded the perks and the privileges of being part of our national legislature in order to represent a new culture of acting in the public interest, with fairness and transparency being the hallmarks of whatever decision they make.
When questioned about the process behind this decision, to allow the Fund to go through, the AFC leadership has gone silent on its most vibrant public forum for dissemination and discussion of ideas, Facebook. This does not bode well for a party that I’ve known to be open to interrogation. I believe I can speak on behalf many people when I say the AFC needs to provide clear and cogent answers on this issue.
Yours faithfully,
Ruel Johnson
