Dear Editor,
Presidential advisor Dr CY Thomas’s column (Sunday Stabroek Feb 26) about the Extractive Industries Transparency initiative (EITI) offers a critical portrayal “that due to space constraints … [was] able to refer to only five critiques.”
Almost a year ago Professor Thomas introduced his lecture on the EITI at a conference in the Pegasus hotel by a similar statement that “his findings should not be interpreted as hostility towards the EITI (but)…viewed only as constructive, critical observation, in the hope that it would enhance the ongoing process”. Since he suffered no constraints of space on that occasion, the audience was treated to the full range of his caution, pessimism, scepticism, questioning and censure about the EITI, which left some wondering what hostility would look like.
Identical views were reproduced in a long article in the Sunday edition of Kaieteur News (March 5). A constant feature of his critiques is the caution that the EITI “should not be treated as a panacea for securing all areas of governance”, although those holding such extreme views are never identified.
Dr Thomas has every right to his views, but they would be more palatable to advocates of the EITI were he to indicate that many of them are to be found on EITI’s own website and are widely discussed within the EITI movement.
Moreover, many of his criticisms are querulous or carping and refer to out-of-date versions of the EITI Standard.
The absence of Brazil/Russia/ India/China/South Africa (BRICS) countries (all notoriously corrupt) from the EITI is something of an obsession with Dr Thomas, as if Guyana should wait until they join the EITI before we take the same step.
Another trivial critique is formulated in terms of “it is impossible to establish a cause-effect relationship” between EITI activity and what it achieves, a truth in relation to civic activism generally, but why raise it in connection with EITI?
Dr Thomas’s fourth critique states that civil society capacity to drive the EITI “varies significantly among EITI implementing countries.” Since just about everything, starting with the weather, ‘varies significantly’ in EITI implementing countries, why is this a ‘critique’ rather than just a fact?
A fifth critique that the Trump administration’s lifting of a reporting requirement on US companies ‘dramatically makes clear’ that the EITI “offers big corporations a safer alternative than mandatory regulation in their own countries” is incorrect. Reporting requirements of big US corporations operating in EITI compliant countries are not disturbed by changes in US domestic requirements.
A final critique quotes the European Parliamentary Research Service, in its EITI Briefing in 2014 to the effect that, “Overall results to date have been uneven and partial.” However, the same source also noted “a positive correlation between EITI candidate countries with enhanced accountability and an improved business climate” which Dr Thomas overlooks to mention.
I am more curious why Dr Thomas has such extensive reservations about a process which is still being fashioned in Guyana. In his earlier lecture he stated that Guyana must ‘avoid becoming a passive recipient of the EITI package’ – a caution he attributes ‘to participants in other jurisdictions (regional), as well as wider civil society analysts’. The truth is that any country that joins the EITI determines for itself what to include in its mandate and how to set up its Multi-Stakeholder Group (MSG). Indeed, there is a growing feeling that given the enormous diversity of membership EITI now enjoys, it may need to introduce more uniformity rather than less.
The great significance of the EITI for Guyana, in my view, is the tri-sectoral direction of the EITI by representatives from government, industry and civil society. Dr Thomas rather dismissively bundles the EITI along with a number of other initiatives such as the Stewardship Council, EU-FLECT and others without appreciating the fact that the EITI is the only mechanism, to my knowledge, in which a legitimately elected government consciously and formally cedes power to a body in which it does not enjoy a majority. If the EITI can gain traction by achieving consensus on smaller issues and from that experience move to more significant issues, why would we want to stifle it?
In the Guyana context, this mechanism offers a challenge, albeit small, even insignificant maybe, to the stark polarization of our national politics.
As the Senior Advisor to the President on corruption-related matters, Dr Thomas can hardly claim that his views on EITI are private and insulated from his formal advisory role. Indeed the issue is larger than the EITI. The presidency has been generally lukewarm with respect to the Norway-Guyana Agreement (NGA), of which creation of the EITI is one of the terms of the agreement. Despite the fact that forestry is the currency of the NGA, the Guyana Forestry Commission has been replaced as the lead agency at COP21 by the Office of Climate Change; LCDS has been replaced by a ‘green economy’ and the professional REDD+ experts are marginalized by non-professionals.
To what extent this generalized lack of interest and support for the terms of the Norway Agreement are influenced by the views of the Senior Advisor is difficult to say. His views on all things Norwegian, (in decidedly un-academic language it might be added) are still available on the UG-IDS website for public viewing. What the Norwegians make of all this is not known. What is of greater concern, however, is what kind of support can the EITI expect from the presidency in light of this persistent negativity?
Yours faithfully,
Mike McCormack
