Cheddi Jagan and I were about the start a meeting in Bartica during the 1992 election campaign, when I was approached by a well-known and important Indian businessman, who asked to speak on the platform. When I told Jagan of the request and he asked what I thought, I told him I was in favour of it. Quite uncharacteristically, Jagan said he was not and I transmitted this to the businessman.
But before the meeting began, Jagan asked if I thought his decision was wrong. I told him he was the boss but that I could not see what harm the individual could do. Indeed, he was a well-known CREEP (as we used to define some of Desmond Hoyte’s big business supporters) in the area and if he wished, as he said, to now throw his support behind the Jagans and the PPP/C, I saw it as a political advantage. Furthermore, we could let him speak first so that we would be in a position to counter any negatives he had to say. Jagan said he was still of the view that the businessman should not speak but that he should be allowed to do so and we would have a discourse later!
This incident came to mind as the Private Sector Commission was attempting to present its petition calling on all parties in the National Assembly to pass the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) (Amendment) Bill and the opposition prevented it from do so. There is no hiding that – not unlike how the PPP and its supporters viewed big business relations with the PNC during the latter’s time in office – the PSC and many of its sectoral members are viewed by the opposition and its supporters as being at the beck and call of the regime to rubber stamp government policies the opposition believes questionable.
Why the persistence of this almost sycophantic relationship between various governments and the business sector? Some have argued that at present the Commission consistently supports the regime because it is packed with PPP/C supporters and fellow travellers. Economic and political powers have now combined in Guyana and thus the PSC’s support for the regime should come as no surprise. But I believe that there is more to this relationship than this.
The businessman spoke at our Bartica meeting and in truth, I would have considered it embarrassing to make the kind of presentation he made. So far as he was now concerned, the PPP/C was the best thing for Guyana and Jagan was the best thing since sliced bread. Jagan was Mahatma Gandhi come to save Guyana, etc, etc!
Later, relaxing at our accommodation, Jagan told me why he had not wanted the individual to speak. He claimed that everyone has the democratic right to choose whom to support and he did not blame anyone for choosing to support the PNC, but his quarrel with that particular person was that he had gone beyond the support required; beyond what Burnham would have expected of him.
According to Jagan, Burnham was a clever man who knew that one could not dismiss all the Indians in Guyana who voiced their support for the PPP as Indians had to live. But in his attempt to win favours from the PNC, the businessman had tried to become more PNC than the PNC and as a result had hurt a lot of PPP supporters. (After the PPP/C won election, a retinue of private sector moguls came parading to Jagan’s office to beg pardon in some of the most shameless ways!)
Jagan had a point: no one should have to show allegiance to a political party/government beyond what is normal. However, his was essentially a theoretical position that did not properly account for the structural difficulty that exists when political regimes are entrenched in office.
In these kinds of circumstances what is normal and required has to be based on individual judgment, which at the very least has to take into consideration the nature of the given government, including how liberal it is, how much one has to lose if it withdraws it support and how entrenched it appears to be, i.e. how long in one’s assessment it is likely to last. It is extremely difficult for the private sector to act independently when it is caught in autocratic never changing political conditions. The entrenched PNC regime had demonstrated its propensities by nationalising some 80% of the private sector.
Over the years, the PSC has supported the PPP/C regime in most if not all of its important quarrels with the opposition, most recently over the Marriott, Amaila and airport projects.
In attempting to use its influence in the anti-money laundering parliamentary process, the Commission sought to get the opposition to pass a Bill the latter believed was defective rather than for example calling on the regime to return the Bill to the committee from which it had been so unceremoniously removed.
Even when the Commission has recognised that a major problem exists, it has sought to make accommodation for the extremely questionable positions of the government. Thus, when the government received a bad report in the 2012 Transparency International Corruption Index, it sought, in its usual blustering manner, to question the methodology of TI rather than using the occasion to introduce policies to try to rectify the situation. According to a statement coming from TI Guyana, “… the PSC expressed concern about the low ranking that Guyana received and its negative impact on business and investment and that, in its view, it was exaggerated. The PSC expressed further concern that the Index is based on perceptions and not reality, and the methodology used may not be appropriate.”
Once the current regime had a majority in parliament, the PSC only needed to show perfunctory respect to the opposition, but just as it is now calling on the government and opposition to adjust to the new realities, it also needs to change if it wishes to build the capacity to influence what is taking place in parliament.
Undoubtedly, there are some PPP/C acolytes in the PSC and it is also true that the organisation should be able to still find some room to manoeuvre more equitably in this new dispensation. But what we are also witnessing is a situation not dissimilar to that which occurred under the PNC: business people caught in a hard place when political regimes are entrenched and unchangeable over long periods of time.
Therefore, even if the PSC manages to become somewhat more balanced in its approach, its tendency to support the regime will remain until we have in place political constitutional arrangements that give such organisations greater room for independent action. Indeed, the problem will only be finally solved when regime change becomes normal.
