If the leaders of the opposition, Mr Bharrat Jagdeo, and his close associates have stolen even half the amount of public funds they are alleged to have, they would have had the good sense to employ some of the best minds in the world to hide it. Thus, the government will also have to employ some of those most versed in the process of finding looted state assets if it wants to go after the really big fish, and even then the process is likely to be long and complicated.
“In 1986, the Republic of the Philippines filed a request for mutual assistance with the Swiss authorities in connection with the repatriation of Marcos deposits in Swiss banks. Twelve years elapsed before these deposits were transferred to escrow accounts in the Philippine National Bank (PNB) and another six years passed before the concerned $624 million was transferred to the Philippine Treasury.” (World Bank, 1997; Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative: Challenges, Opportunities, and Action Plan).
The capacity to hide looted resources has improved, so has the technology to recover them and the recovery time appears to be getting shorter. But if success is to be achieved in these types of cases one must still be prepared to give the process substantial time to work, and a discourse with the PPP/C about a new form of governance cannot and should not have to wait.
Thus, coming on the heels of the establishment of the committee to consider constitutional reform, when it was reported ‘Granger to unveil initiative for gov’t, opposition engagement’ on the issue of ‘inclusive governance’ (SN 30/08/2015), I was most expectant and my expectations have only been temporarily dimmed by the PPP/C’s rejection of that process.
Notwithstanding their hype, if the allegations of asset-looting are true and the leadership of the PPP/C has a decent grasp of their own interest, they will take every opportunity to be associated with and not unnecessarily antagonise the regime.
One tactic of guilty leaders in this position is to gradually diminish the political will of the government to pursue investigation. A good means of doing so is to have persistent close association and various forms of deal-making with party/government leaders at the same time as projecting oneself nationally as reasonable, open and transparent. This is one reason why the institutions involved in this kind of process should be well established and have an arms-length relationship with politicians on all sides.
Also, both political parties have been accused of discriminatory behaviour during their tenure: the point of the president’s invitation is partly to find a permanent solution to prevent or seriously mitigate such acts in the future. It may not be illogical to request a cessation of the specific extant problem before a discussion on a permanent cure can take place, but such positioning certainly falls in the realm of temporary political hard-balling.
That said, a few days after the president’s initiative was announced a series of events followed that led me to wonder in last week’s column whether I was witnessing divergent views within the coalition of how to deal with the PPP/C; a maverick one-upmanship to quell a local situation, or simply incoherence in the corridors of power.
I will here begin a more holistic consideration of this observation, for success in getting the government and the opposition to seriously cooperate in the national interest will depend upon precisely what is taking place in their relationship and between the coalition partners.
On 29 August, Minister of Governance Raphael Trotman informed us that the president was about to unveil his initiative to attempt to involve the PPP/C in a form of inclusive government. He recognised that there is no single accepted definition of what this entails and that as such it will have to grow out of a stakeholders’ consultation hopefully to be held by the end of the year.
In terms of policy coherence, it is notable that this statement should be viewed in the context of the already established steering committee on constitutional reform, which will have to acquire or adopt some working understanding of inclusive governance by also engaging in widespread stakeholder consultation!
That aside, Mr Trotman gave a hint of what the president had in mind when he pointed to some of what had already been done by the coalition to establish inclusive governance. For example, he claimed that the president has already directed cabinet members to regularly update their shadow counterparts. Government intends to include opposition and civil society members in country delegations when they are going abroad to represent Guyana. Government is also looking to enhance the profiles of parliamentarians generally and, particularly, see how the work of geographic MPs can be supported.
Of course, in our ethnic context, if this is the whole nature of the coalition inclusive governance agenda, it is most uninspiring, being essential elements of any modern democracy and standard songs in the PPP/C’s playbook any time the Jagdeo presidency came under pressure.
Thus, in response to the PNC’s demand for shared governance, in 2003 State House published ‘Towards Greater Inclusive Governance in Guyana’. It too claimed that inclusive governance would be enhanced by collaborative efforts that would include: “(a) establishing means and facilities to enhance the work of Members of Parliament and strengthening their ability to present their views in legislative matters and to represent their constituents. (b) improving the discourse between Government and Opposition through the appointment of Shadow Cabinet Ministers who can represent their views on policy to the Government and be apprised of policy developments by the Government.”
Of course, these minimalist proposals were essentially a ruse by the PPP/C to avoid confronting the demand for shared governance. Therefore, it was most interesting when Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo opened the door to a more radical formulation, which invited the parliamentary opposition to join a national unity government. “We are prepared to open the doors to the PPP if they want to enter this government because we want to have an all-inclusive government.” (SN 6/9/2015)
However, a week later President Granger felt constrained to explain that his government is “committed to inclusionary democracy and is prepared to consider executive power sharing with the opposition People’s Progressive Party/Civic.” (SN 13/9/2015)
Is the national unity government as proposed by the PM an executive power sharing government? If it is, I hope he and the regime understands that in the normal scheme of things, a government should be prepared to discuss almost anything put to it by the official opposition.
But being prepared to consider an executive power-sharing/national unity government is a far cry from placing it on the table for the other party to consider as the PM seemed to have intended and coalition pre-election commitment appears to require.
