Dear Editor,
Professor Clive Thomas has a deserved reputation as an outstanding economist, particularly in sugar and monetary economics, a champion for bread and justice, for human rights and for free and fair elections. Perhaps because of this, his professional reputation remained intact despite his role as co-leader of the Working People’s Alliance to which he was elected in 1985, which I believe was the last time the WPA held any internal party elections.
Prof Thomas represents the WPA in the APNU leadership and since May 2015, has held prominent positions as Presidential Adviser on sustainable development, Chairman of GuySuCo and Director of the State Assets Recovery Unit (SARU). While his contribution as an adviser is unclear, his role in sugar and SARU has done little to match his academic reputation.
He was a prominent member of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (CoI) in the sugar industry and the sole author of Volume 2 of the Report ‒ the Financial/Economic Analysis. Yet, not only has he never publicly accepted any responsibility for or association with the Report, but as GuySuCo’s Chairman, he has acted contrary to positions he took as a member of the Commission. On top of that, he appears not to have advanced a single solution to sugar’s problems, leaving it once again to the politicians. Sugar is in the same messy and uncertain state as when he assumed leadership of GuySuCo.
Still, it is Dr Thomas’s role in SARU that causes the greatest concern. While he has every reason to be concerned about recovering assets of the state, to suggest that the Private Sector Commission is not being “principled, balanced and near impartial” is uncharacteristically arrogant and deceptive. In defending the SARA Bill, all Dr Thomas seems willing to cite is a single article of the UN Convention Against Corruption. He knows that there are other
articles, such as Article 7 which deals with the funding of political parties and their candidates, which bears heavily on corruption in Guyana. On balance and principle, it would help if Dr Thomas would disclose the role he and SARU played in the drafting of a Bill on the lines of the Asset Recovery Authority of England (ARA), and confirm that the ARA proved to be a colossal failure. And he can tell us too the reason for the SARA Bill making the Director a corporation sole, answerable to no one, with the power to demand resources from the police to “mount operations”, or to delegate its draconian powers to any other person. As drafted, the Bill enables the Director to assume the powers of the Commissioner General of the Guyana Revenue Authority and the police, and brings the DPP – an independent constitutional office – within his influence.
Instead of responding to specific concerns raised by the Private Sector Commission, Prof Thomas, putting himself at the centre of the debate, casts aspersions and engages in fear-mongering, publishing outlandish numbers to persuade the political leaders to grant to him powers which no individual or body has ever possessed in the history of this country. Not Governor, not Governor General, not President, not anybody. It is no surprise that neither he nor any of his colleagues has so far been able to defend the Bill or his fanciful economics.
I do not recall Dr Thomas ever raising any objection when the then opposition successfully and justifiably called for Anti-Money Laundering legislation introduced by the PPP/C to be taken to a Select Committee. Now, desperately hoping that he will be named Director of SARA, Dr Thomas claims that he has all this information about hundreds of billions being lost to the state annually. The professor needs to explain why an academic would be opposed to robust debate on a Bill that challenges certain established principles of jurisprudence and to realise that the inescapable suspicion is that he is afraid that the Bill’s flaws will be exposed professionally, clinically and fatally.
Prof Thomas also needs to explain why he is not sharing with the Guyana Police Force or the Director of Public Prosecutions the fantastic information he claims to have collected. One need not be a presidential adviser or professor to know that it is a crime to conceal or withhold information on crimes committed. And as an economist and presidential adviser, he must know that the country needs some of those billions now.
And on the question of tax frauds, it would be surprising if Dr Thomas really believes that he will be better at pursuing tax evaders than the tax authorities, which in any case, would no doubt be very receptive to information supplied by SARU. Armed with such information, the GRA will then be in a position to pursue assets and persons in those countries with which Guyana has Double Taxation Treaties (Canada, Caricom States and the UK) and in the case of the USA, a Tax Information Exchange Agreement.
Recovering state assets is not about individual heroism, quixotic adventures or outlandish numbers. It is very much part of the rule of law and good policing. The role, calibre, experience, diligence and training of the investigator are vital to a successful outcome whether in the criminal courts or in civil procedures. That is why it is only the elites who are selected to carry out such work within the framework of the Police Forces of various countries.
Dr Thomas’ appointment of completely untrained persons to carry out “investigations” demonstrates a complete and frightening lack of understanding of such basic ingredients. To compound the situation, he is either unaware of, or is indifferent to the fact that he and many of his appointees are politically exposed persons.
I understand that former Auditor General Dr Anand Goolsarran has been blocked from appointment to the post of Director of the FIU because as a former Auditor General he is a politically exposed person.
We need to recover stolen or ill-gotten state assets. But it would be ironic and counterproductive if the SARA Bill as drafted is not radically restructured. Critical features of the Bill will inevitably be challenged in the courts, causing delay and allowing guilty persons more time to hide their assets. I am sure this is not what Dr Thomas wants, but it is what poor judgment, patent inexperience and unshakeable stubbornness will cause.
Yours faithfully,
Christopher Ram
