There is some quirk in the minds of politicians which makes it possible for them to espouse certain principles when they are out of office, and then promptly do the opposite when they are in government. This is coupled with a feeling of invincibility and the belief that they are accountable to no one, since they have been democratically elected. The notion that a free and fair election is no carte blanche for elective dictatorship, to use the term coined by Lord Hailsham, does not seem to have lodged itself in the consciousness of some of our political players.
So there they are – and it doesn’t matter which party is involved – bypassing constitutional checks and balances and ignoring the requirements of transparency and accountability. In the process, it might be added, they also undermine any little faith the electorate might have had in their competency by preferring to hire loyalists, no matter how lacking in the necessary expertise.
One might have thought that they would have recognised that voters are more or less divided down the middle and that we are into an era of one-seat majorities, so more than a modicum of consultation is in order. But this reality does not seem to have disturbed the repose of either the last government or this one; they have proceeded as if they have swept the board in terms of ballots – although it must be said that even that would not justify lack of accountability or consultation.
If anyone expected that the present government would change the pattern of decades, they would have been disappointed. Despite all the talk of unity – and we have had plenty of that – old habits, it seems, die hard. Even some of those agencies which are theoretically autonomous with the responsibility of overseeing government decisions in one respect or another or the behaviour of our politicians in general, have been subverted. In the case of the EPA, it was done by removing the competent Director in charge, while the Integrity Commission, for example, is effectively non-functional.
In the days before we were in the process of graduating to an oil economy, our governance shortcomings, while still unacceptable, were arguably less critical, but now we are emerging into a world where we have neither the skills, the structures nor the ethical framework in terms of our politics, to handle the challenges which confront us. Yet this government is still rampaging on with the same attitude which brought us the white elephant of the Skeldon factory with all its grave consequences for the sugar industry, and the Amaila Falls road, among several others.
On the consultation front there has been no larger debate about what kind of society in this new economic dispensation we want to see; the government is seemingly going to take all those decisions on its own, no matter what the populace thinks. For instance, there has been no discussion about whether we should proceed with the gas to shore project, for example, or whether we should not mitigate our contribution to global warming by foregoing the use of gas as we argued in our editorial two weeks ago.
We said at that time that this country will “be flush with cash” in the next decade from the sale of our light crude, but as has now become almost habitual with this government, it has not based its decision relating to gas on any purpose-built study which has been subject to critical review. We continued by observing, “As if that wasn’t enough, the environmental and safety risks to the country’s offshore waters from the pipeline, flora and fauna and populated centres will be onerous especially in the backdrop of lax, ineffective and underfunded regulatory bodies here.”
It was perhaps not altogether surprising, therefore, that the government delegation took itself off to Glasgow without having held any prior consultations here first, and without even having a draft programme of commitments, other than preserving the forest (but not our coastal mangroves, it seems) and defending our oil policy. The nation will live with the latter, but as said earlier there need to be wider exchanges about the direction the nation is taking, and the complexities involved in managing this new economy in the interest of Guyanese. After all, the future of everyone is involved, whatever their political persuasion.
One of the more egregious examples of dereliction of governmental duty and a lack of accountability in very recent times is the administration’s failure to have US$9 billion in ExxonMobil expenses audited. We reported last week that it was the Ministry of Natural Resources which had been responsible for evaluating the financials of companies which bid for the contract, but that it had stopped the process without telling the Procurement Board. As a consequence it will not be possible to determine if the expenditure claimed could be justified, because if it couldn’t then Guyana would lose profit.
Well this has happened despite President Irfaan Ali promising transparency in the oil and gas sector three months ago, and more significantly, Mr Bharrat Jagdeo excoriating the coalition government for its lack of dispatch in auditing ExxonMobil’s US$460 million pre-contract costs when he was in opposition. All costs would undergo strict scrutiny, he said just after the PPP/C government acceded to office.
True to political form all that was forgotten when he breezily told reporters recently that ExxonMobil’s post-2017 expenditure for the Liza-1 and Liza-2 wells would not be audited as the government was not able to select a strong local group to undertake it. This statement was made although the government had advertised this year for foreign firms.
“We have been very disappointed that we have not been able to select a group to do the audit of the post-2017 expenditure…,” he was quoted as saying. “The reason is we did not have a strong local content. We had two local groups that came in but they were not strong enough. We want to build a capacity in Guyana to do this audit.”
Apart from the various other issues which this default raises, as Chartered Accountant Christopher Ram told this newspaper, if the government was that interested in auditing the costs, “it could have called on the Audit Office, which has easy access to Canada and its wealth of experience in petroleum audits, to provide assistance, even as a short-term measure,”
As with large projects, so with smaller ones like the Bamia Primary School. This school is in Region Ten, but not surprisingly, perhaps, the regional authorities were not consulted about it. The project, worth $346 million, went to tender and the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board selected a company which was only incorporated in March of this year and which represented the second lowest bid. Questions were raised because the company concerned had no construction experience; its principals, Messrs Rawle Ferguson and Aubrey Major came from the Entertainment and Sports sectors, while the last named has been appointed Chairman of the Tourism Authority. In addition to that they are known to be close to the PPP/C. For their part they have said they have the advice of a respected geotechnical engineer, Mr Charles Ceres.
There was some question about whether the company had been removed from the Register of Companies, but this is said to have been an error. However when Chairman of the Procurement Board Tarachand Balgobin was asked about it, he responded that evaluators of bids are not required to conduct due diligence exercises into companies that tender for public projects. This prompted Mr Howard Bulkan from one of the companies which tendered to ask in a letter to this newspaper: “What exactly then are the evaluators evaluating?”
Our report quoted the Public Procurement Act of 2003, a part of which states, “The Evaluation Committee shall, using only the evaluation criteria outlined in the tender documents, evaluate all tenders, determine which tenderer has submitted the lowest evaluated tender …” Why the lowest bidder was not chosen in this instance, is not known.
We reported Region Ten Chairman Deron Adams as saying that the Regional Democratic Council had noted the way in which developmental projects were being dealt with, and that there was “scant regard” for the elected representatives of the Region. He gave the assurance that every project would be closely monitored.
And that, it must be said, is the way to go in addition to the establishment and strengthening of regulatory agencies. That, however, is a more difficult issue which is not going to happen quickly. In the meantime, our political elites are not about to change their habits of their own volition, no matter what they say or what promises they give. We are in an era where every project must be monitored and every decision evaluated, not just by what one might call the usual critics, who the government have got into the habit of turning a deaf ear to, but also groups of ordinary men and women who are affected by such decisions or projects. And they must be prepared to go public.
In addition it must not matter how they vote; PPP/C local authorities, for example, should be as prepared to raise their objections as opposition ones. What matters are local areas which are more liveable and a better society for all. And in the end, a government for the people and not just for itself.
