It is undeniable that since the night of December 21st when the government surprisingly lost the motion of no confidence brought against it that the country has been in a state of suspended animation – verging on nine months of it with no end in sight. This virtual state of paralysis has affected every part of the economy and national life.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the government’s own 2019 budget and the major capital projects planned. Projects like the new crossing for the Demerara River – the process already pockmarked by concerns over corruption and the lack of transparency – with intricate financing needs will not advance. Neither will other major infrastructural projects such as the bypass road between the East Bank of Demerara and the East Coast of Demerara which is a bilateral project with the Government of India. Faltering efforts at selling mothballed sugar estates and providing hope for thousands of workers who were made redundant will not go forward. Those thousands and their families have been abandoned by the government. By its own admission, the government will be unable to present a budget for 2020 – one of the potent signs of its caretaker status as adumbrated by Guyana’s top court.
The government’s energies, along with much taxpayers’ money, have been dissipated on fighting every step of the way to prevent early elections mandated under 106(6) and 106(7) of the Guyana Constitution while at the same time doling out favours to communities all across the country in a frenetic bid to improve its chances whenever the elections are held. The incumbent is abusing its incumbency in its bid to be re-elected while defying the Constitution all the way.
There must come a point when the leaders of APNU+AFC realise that their defiance of the Constitution solely to continue occupying office for a better chance of holding it for another five years is coming at a great cost to adherence to the Constitution and the rule of law. The government and its cheerleaders cannot be oblivious to it and there will come a point when accountability will kick in.
One area where the country will rue the government’s gross irresponsibility is in relation to its handling of the oil and gas sector. Savvy and ruthless investors thrive in the dark spaces created by the current political limbo. The government’s woeful 2016 Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) with ExxonMobil’s subsidiary EEPGL should already have been the subject of a Commission of Inquiry to examine what exactly were the roles of President Granger, Minister Trotman and the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission in this debacle. The PSA aside, the life of this administration will come to an end without broad legislative agreement on the Petroleum Commission, the Natural Resource Fund Act, the all-important local content bill and with great concerns about whether Guyana is prepared at all to address any spill from oil operations and whether there is even a modicum of insulation for it in the various PSAs which have been concluded. Still to be satisfactorily concluded is how the state will competently examine the expenses claimed by ExxonMobil and its subsidiaries. This is the entropic condition that APNU+AFC is prepared to risk for Guyana only so that it could remain in office.
President Granger has declined to dissolve Parliament and name an election date, quite improperly placing the onus on GECOM and its new Chairman, Justice (Rtd) Singh. Even so, Justice Singh now has major challenges of her own before her. In meetings last week with both the PPP and APNU+AFC, the GECOM Chairman was reported as stating that she is working to have elections held before the end of the year. Though she has not spoken publicly, the reports have not been confuted by GECOM or anyone else. An election before the end of the year presupposes that the GECOM Chair has not accepted the timeline of March 2020 supplied by the elections secretariat nor does she foresee major delays in the incorporation into the National Register of Registrants (NRR), data that has been salvaged from the ill-advised house-to-house registration exercise.
The country needs to hear a clear voice from GECOM and Justice Singh on the way forward. Immediately, the GECOM Chair must elicit from the Chief Election Officer (CEO) the major tasks to be completed using the current NRR with the most efficient timelines. (As an aside, GECOM must urgently ascertain whether the CEO is medically fit for the gruelling task ahead and if he is not, an urgent request should go to CARICOM or the Commonwealth for a temporary replacement.) Once the GECOM Chair has been provided with timelines she must then immediately advise President Granger of a timeframe for elections. The President would then have no further room to temporise or prevaricate and would then be expected to name an election date.
As has been the case since she was appointed on July 29th, the GECOM chair must be acutely aware of the ruling of the Caribbean Court of Justice on July 12 that Articles 106 (6) and (7) of the Constitution are in effect requiring elections within three months unless there is an extension by two-thirds of the National Assembly which no longer seems likely. Given that the three-month period will lapse without agreement by the political parties, Justice Singh must act with urgency to enable the next best option which is elections as soon as possible utilizing the NRR and the processes that enabled smooth general elections in 2011 and 2015. The GECOM Chair will no doubt also be aware that after September 18 there will be a question mark over the legitimacy of the government and parliament and that she can ill-afford to compound this quagmire by indulging attempts to further delay the process.
