Dear Editor,
The recent advertisement by the Ministry of Communities inviting developers to submit expressions of interest for affordable housing demands pause for thought. The advertisement proposes the public-private partnership approach. The Minister, Mr Dominic Gaskin, is reported separately as saying that government now has to put in place systems, including legislation, to deal with public-private partnership proposals generally. I however believe that legislation is badly overdue, and urgently needed to impose a clear duty on the respective government ministers to disclose such concessions in the National Assembly, set out penalties for wrongdoers, and lend some public assurance to the whole process. In Guyana today legislation, based on stated policy and backed up by adequate regulations, is not just desirable, it is essential.
We are currently grappling with the effects of dire exposure to government arrangements with private parties which have failed, as reported in the media. Like the one where an investor failed to fulfil obligations of adding capacity in the wood industry, and strangely government had granted further concessions. And one where various would-be developers have bought land from government under agreements to develop housing, but instead re-sold the same for a windfall, raising hackles over both the developers’ ploys and government complicity.
Formal public-private partnerships have seen growing interest in developing countries for infrastructure, in particular, which traditionally has faced chronic shortages in funding. However these partnership arrangements can fail and where this happens huge amounts of public money and land resources are jeopardised.
Legislation in public-private partnerships in Guyana is critical to impose duties on both the public and private partners, including a duty on the latter to report in a timely fashion and to account for the process. Legislation is also critical to set the absolute criteria that a project must meet to qualify to be undertaken. Such criteria typically include value for money, and acceptability of the private sector fee, computations of which must be vouched for by identified public personnel. The responsible minister should also be required to table the concession agreement in the National Assembly, and indeed even table draft concessions beforehand, where the dollar-value surpasses a certain amount.
Most important of all is that legislation is needed to provide for fines and imprisonment for any public official or private person contravening specific sections of the legislation; the creation of offences, avenues for prosecution, and the aspect of deterrence must not be left to chance. In addition to the affordable housing projects for which there has now been public notification, media reports have indicated that public-private partnership arrangements may well be applied to onshore infrastructure in the oil sector to-be, and given the dire exposures referred to, the proverbial stable door must be shut whilst there is still time.
Yours faithfully,
Donald Rodney
