The Guyana Human Rights Association has announced that a group of 17 NGOs have endorsed recommendations aimed at ‘Restoring accountability to citizens focusing on political, environmental and financial accountability.’
The group met at the Marian Academy auditorium on Saturday to finalise work started at an Open Space meeting in December 2014, a press statement from the GHRA said. Participants at the meeting represented youth, women, disability, trade union, indigenous, HIV, community-based, human rights, environment and cultural ethnic organisations along with concerned individuals. The recommendations will form the basis of a civil society statement with a dual purpose: to educate the membership of participating organisations on the issues and, secondly, to provide a basis for engaging the major contesting parties in the upcoming elections.
“The ‘accountability’ theme, running through the recommendations was initially prompted by criticism of the ‘anonymity’ of the electoral system which does not conform with the Constitutional provision that voters must know as closely as possible for whom they are voting,” the GHRA said. “More general issues of political accountability touched on access to information in a manner which allows citizens to hold their elected representatives to account,” it added. Discussions on environmental accountability focused on the gulf between laws and regulations on paper and the reality of destructive practices while government agencies lack the capacity to prevent or to penalize infringements, it further said.
On the issue of holding people and corporations to account with respect to bribery and corruption, GHRA said lively discussions were held over the extent to which low salaries in the public service have contributed to these problems. The meeting agreed that transparency issues could be improved by Parliament playing a more central and prominent role in both monitoring of foreign contracts which involve public funds and by ensuring that all public funds pass through the Consolidated Fund. Participants also debated on whether there is a need for NICIL.
A statement of agreed positions will be available shortly. It will document issues that could be addressed promptly after parties take office and those to which Parliament could give further consideration.
The proposed engagement with contesting parties would be a single event sponsored by a range of civic organisations drawn from those participating in the process described above. Both major contesting parties will be invited. A formula will be adopted that will allow for a balanced discussion.
