Dear Editor,
Having read Minister of Culture Frank Anthony’s latest lament on the “troubles” plaguing the Caribbean Press, I reiterate my call for his resignation on the count of perpetual incompetence.
We should start with the list of books to be published. Nowhere does the Minister mention the “poetry anthology (at the printers) featuring 22 local Guyanese writers, most of them never published before, and at least two who show serious talent and should be encouraged to produce full volumes,” nor the anthology of “Guyanese short stories” that Dr David Dabydeen promised to launch the “next time” he was in Guyana (“Minister Anthony paid…” SN, Jan 15, 2013); Dr Dabydeen was “next” in Guyana half a year ago, and neither anthology was launched. In several letters throughout the year, I asked about the progress being made on these anthologies, queries that were met with complete silence from the ministry, even as local authors, the very people the Press was purportedly established to publish, continue to be denied publication promised them at least three years ago.
In contrast, those associated with the management of the Press have done very well over the past year or two. Dr Ian McDonald has released several books, and has won another deserved Guyana Prize for poetry; Dr Dabydeen has launched his latest novel, Johnson’s Dictionary, in England; Mr Petamber Persaud has recently launched his book An Introduction to Guyanese Literature; and of course, the Minister’s daughter, Ms Ashley Anthony, has had her book published by the Caribbean Press itself.
Now, with regard to the funding for the Caribbean Press and the supposed danger it faces, Dr Anthony is setting up a straw dragon and then pretending to cower from it. As far as I can tell, none of the parliamentary parties has threatened the ministry’s budgetary allocations nor have they given any indication that they will do so. The only “resistance” on the Caribbean Press in parliament that the Minister has had to face was the AFC’s Trevor Williams’ written questions on the Press’ operations half a year ago, although judging from the quality of the Minister’s answers with regard to issues of accountability, his fears of the as yet unbrandished budgetary axe may be understandable. For example, to date, the Minister has yet to account for the precise number of copies of books published by the Press, and where they are in Guyana, in keeping with his claims that the bulk of the books have been distributed to schools, despite the Ministry of Education being uninvolved with said distribution.
Contrary to the Minister’s prediction of doom and gloom, and the establishment of the red herring of board funding as an issue, fixing what is wrong with the Caribbean Press is not rocket science. First, you need two boards, management and editorial. With regard to the management board, like all state boards, participation would be voluntary, and academics as a rule do not charge for editorial board participation. Therefore, Dr Anthony’s insinuation that board costs would be a stumbling block to the Press’ continued operations is misleading at best, but not atypical of the Minister’s pronouncements.
The key editorial management cost would be for a qualified managing editor. I for one initially volunteered my services, was asked to quote a price for professional services by Dr Dabydeen which he then grossly inflated and publicized as part of the attempt to deflect inquiries into the Press, following which I again offered my voluntary services. I even went as far as sending a summary white paper, inclusive of suggested editorial and management boards to the Minister via his Permanent Secretary, Alfred King, a document that was also sent to Dr Dabydeen. Indeed, Dr Dabydeen was also sent further recommendations for the management of the Press, none of which have been put into place. Making electronic copies of the books available for sale on websites like Amazon, for example, would have been eminently achievable yet the only e-versions of Caribbean Press books are available via PDF on the hastily cobbled-together ‘website’ that sprung up in the wake of my enquiries last year.
As for the administrative costs, Dr Anthony has never come clean on the specifics, particularly human resource allocations. He focuses for example on the $7.85 million spent on secretarial assistants for three years, yet he refuses to disclose where this money was spent (UK or Guyana), or the identity, contractual obligations and qualifications of the assistants. Additionally, the Minister is equally silent on the specifics of the layout and design costs, as well as the licensing costs paid to the original publishers of the books being reprinted by the Press.
As I have stated before, remove the incompetence and the lack of accountability from the initiative, and the Caribbean Press can be a timely, innovative and sustainable venture. It is the Minister’s refusal to do so which is the major stumbling block, typical of the PPP’s penchant for financial and operational inscrutability in the execution of projects they claim to establish in the national interest.
I again offer my pro bono services as Caribbean Press advisory editor. My only stipulations, as I made clear to Dr Dabydeen, are that active focus needs to be placed on the discovery, development and publication of contemporary resident writers, and that a definitive financial and operational audit of the Caribbean Press should be undertaken as a baseline for moving the initiative sustainably forward. If it is that the Minister has nothing to fear from such an audit, and if he is truly interested in keeping the initiative alive, he would actively seek out and accept all the help offered, instead of finding weak, pity-po-boy excuses to justify his inability to stick to his promises on the Caribbean Press, whether they have to do with the publication of local authors or to set up a competent board or boards. I await his response, starting with a public statement on the miraculous disappearance of the two anthologies of contemporary local fiction and poetry, promised by both himself and Dr Dabydeen.
Yours faithfully,
Ruel Johnson
