It is time that government honours its commitment to promote transparency and accountability by taking “decisive” action against ministers who breach the Code of Conduct guidelines, President of the Transparency Institute of Guyana Inc (TIGI) Troy Thomas says.
He is also urging the public to take evidence of conflict of interest to the Integrity Commission.
“The political culture…is to defend as far as possible so when these things happen, we don’t want to let people face whatever sanctions…we try to defend and I think that’s what going on in the political arena so…I don’t know if there is any strong will on the part of the government itself to address those situations decisively,” Thomas told the Sunday Stabroek recently.
He has been outspoken on the recent conflict of interest claims swirling around Ministers Catherine Hughes and Valerie Adams-Yearwood. Other observers have also spoken of government’s lax approach in dealing with those matters.
In Adams-Yearwood’s case, the revelation that contracts were awarded to her husband, Godfrey Yearwood by the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA), for which she had oversight, was made by Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo on April 3rd. On April 15th, the minister issued a statement saying that she only became aware of the contracts after they were awarded. She was at pains to point out that she played no part in the award of contracts. President David Granger has since reassigned her to the Ministry of Agriculture.
In the case of Hughes, who is the Minister of Public Telecommunica-tions, her company Videomega was awarded government contracts. This information too was made public by the opposition PPP.
The party first disclosed that Hughes’ company was awarded a Department of Energy (DoE) contract worth $832,200. Two weeks later, the party revealed that Videomega had done advertising work on behalf of government agencies. Three of these contracts pertained to Hughes’ Public Telecom-munications Ministry. Hughes has maintained that she does not have any control over the day-to-day operations of her company.
Thomas, in his interview with the Sunday Stabroek, pointed out that in its campaign messages, the APNU+AFC government spoke at length about transparency and accountability but their actions have been contradictory as they are not adhering to their utterances.
In this regard, he urged the public to start pushing for action and said that there are provisions in the Integrity Commission Act for a person to make a complaint, which will result in action being taken.
Letter
“The commission re-quires a letter from a citizen so that even if the matter is discussed in the media, the commission just can’t pick up itself and do something, they are constrained to acting in response to something received from a concerned citizen,” he said.
Section 28 of the Act states that anyone wishing to make a complaint must do so in writing stating the particulars about the breach, the particulars of the person who committed the breach, and the nature of the evidence that will be produced. That complaint, according to the Act, can be done in person or via registered post and addressed to the Chairman.
If the commission is of the view that there is merit in the complaint, it shall hold a public hearing into the matter, following which it shall transmit a report to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) if it considers it necessary. Where the DPP is satisfied that a breach has occurred, criminal proceedings shall be initiated against the person in public life.
“So probably now we have to encourage people who have information to come forward and lodge that information,” said Thomas, who acknowledged that persons may be fearful of coming forward. In this regard, he said, internally the commission can decide how they will treat such persons.
“We [TIGI] need at least to verify the origins of it [the information]. It does not mean that we are going to divulge that information because we only take the kind of action that the person making the complaint agrees with,” he said, before advising persons wishing to come forward, to first clarify with the commission how the information will be dealt with.
Sunday Stabroek made several attempts to reach the commission’s Chairman, Kumar Doraisami on concerns about conflict of interest pertaining to the ministers, but was unsuccessful.
The Code of Conduct is a part of the Integrity Commission Act. It was gazetted as the Integrity Commission (Amendment of Code of Conduct) Order 2017 and sets out the ten guiding principles for people in public life. These are accountability, dignity, diligence, duty, honour, integrity, loyalty, objectivity, responsibility and transparency.
Article 4 specifically addresses conflict of interest, which it states, arises “where a public official makes or participates in the making of a decision in the execution of his or her office and at the same time knows or ought to have reasonably have known, that in the making of that decision, there is a material beneficial opportunity either directly or indirectly to further his or her private interests or that of a member of his or her family or any other person or entity.”
It states further that a person in public life, among other things, shall “refuse or relinquish any outside employment, shareholdings or directorships which create or are likely to create a conflict of interest.”
Any person in public life who is in breach of any of the provisions of the code shall be liable, on summary conviction, to a fine of $25,000 and to imprisonment for a period of between six months to one year.
Clear conflict
Meanwhile, Thomas said that in the case of Adams-Yearwood, there was a clear conflict of interest. “I am not second guessing myself on that at all,” he said, before questioning the rationale behind moving the minister to another ministry.
“If …someone benefited improperly how does moving the person from the ministry begin to address that. Those measures don’t seem appropriate considering what we are talking about here so I don’t think there is a strong incentive on the part of the government [to take action] and not [just] this government [but] any,” he said.
Shortly after the contract awards to her husband were made public, government announced Adams-Yearwood’s reassignment. She is now the Minister in the Ministry of Agriculture with responsibility for Rural Affairs.
Granger has defended this move saying that it was in the public’s interest.
“She has not been convicted of any crime and I feel that her services could be used in supporting the Ministry of Agriculture with responsibility for Rural Affairs,” Granger told the media on May 2nd, shortly after swearing in new ministers who were appointed to the posts left vacant after the resignation of four dual citizen parliamentarians. Adams-Yearwood, who was listed as one to be sworn in, was absent from the ceremony.
Following the announcement of her reassignment, Adams-Yearwood described it as a promotion.
According to Thomas, the claims made against Hughes are less clear cut as the award of the DoE contract could have been the result of “favouritism.” The provisions in the code, he reminded, speak to direct participation in a decision or being in charge of it.
He informed that he has not yet looked at the second list of claims for advertising services but if it was a contract awarded by her ministry, then it would have been a clear conflict because she would not be able to dispute knowledge of the award. Outside of that, he said that things can happen across ministries but “we don’t have clear evidence that she did something there… [but] you can still show favouritism because you know that it’s this person’s company so this is not off the table as yet.”
Thomas said that showing favouritism falls on the shoulders of government. “So technically you can’t say it’s her conflict of interest because she didn’t do it. If she did, however, intervene in some way, then of course that is a conflict of interest because she could call the other ministries and get some favour but of course we can’t prove that that happened,” he added.
Acknowledging that nothing has become of the issues surrounding the company belonging to Hughes’ husband which offers services to oil companies, Thomas insisted that there is potential for conflict of interest.
He reminded that TIGI got “strong” reactions to its statements but said these were largely ignored as the comments did not change “the facts of the case.” Thomas said that he has taken note of Hughes’ commitment to staying away from Cabinet discussions on oil but observed that this does not take “every possibility off the table…but if she is taking herself out of it, she is actually conforming to what the Code of Conduct would require.”
He said that it is known that things can still go around and Hughes can still get privileged information but unless someone comes forward with the evidence, no action can be taken.
Further, he said that once she participates in a decision that affects her husband’s firm, it would be acting on conflict of interest and that is what she needs to guard against. A large part of the issue, he said, was the concern about having information that people outside of government would not have.
