Dear Editor,
In Guyana, all the media (newspapers, radio and TV), especially Stabroek News and Kaieteur News, must be commended and defended for playing an absolutely invaluable role in promoting democracy, good governance, fairness, equality and in exposing corrupt behaviour.
Please allow me to bring to the attention of your readers that a number of key points in my published letter to the editor dated November 21 were not included in the Stabroek News article of November 22, 2021 titled “Da Silva concerned at trajectory of PPP/C gov’t”. Consequently, the article unintentionally gives an unbalanced view of my proposals on resisting and preventing corruption.
I do not see fighting corruption as a politically partisan issue. In my letter, I noted that corruption is an international problem that usually increases when governments enter the second year of their 5-year mandate. In Guyana, corrupt politicians and officials come from all political parties, ethnicities, genders, ages and classes. I noted that no less a source than the USA Embassy in Georgetown has publicly observed that two of the five major national shortcomings in Guyana are corruption and the weak enforcement of the laws on corruption.
Omitted from the article, my letter included five examples of real and alleged corruption that occurred between 2015 and 2020 under the APNU+AFC government.
Also omitted were two key questions that I asked in the letter. “How come our political leaders are only willing to talk about and act against the corrupt practices of their political competitors but not against their own political associates, friends and their families? How come many political parties and public institutions do not have “living” anti-corruption cultures with clear guidelines and Standard Operating Procedures so that everyone will know what behaviour is acceptable and what is not acceptable?”
Then, I called on “Leaders at the national regional and local levels, starting from Ministers, Board of Directors, Commissioners, Managers, Supervisors to those at the grassroots, to avoid hypocrisy and prove that they truly believe in the existing anti-corruption laws by `practicing what they preach’ and impose penalties, without fear or favour, when any member of their party or institution, including at the senior levels, practices corruption.”
I emphasized that the priority should be training programmes in all public institutions to detect and resist any kind of wrongdoing in the awarding of contracts and purchase orders through a number of measures such as [1] verifying the track records of contractors and suppliers; [2] ensuring that more than one staff are involved in choosing a supplier or contractor, and in the signing-off of purchase orders and contracts; [3] carrying out regular audits; [4] mandating that members, at all levels of an institution, must declare potential conflicts of interest; [5] setting up an official register to track any travel, hospitality, gifts, donations and sponsorship received by employees from suppliers and contractors and [6] creating a system to continuously monitor, evaluate, learn from and adjust measures to end bribery and other kinds of corrupt behaviour.
The concern about increasing corruption under the PPP/C is real. Politicians know that many times human behaviour is unpredictable. Both political parties know that was a factor in the 2015 and 2020 national elections. In 2025, it could lead to many disappointed citizens not going out to vote because they do not want to waste their votes on any of the political parties that hypocritically talks about fighting corruption but does not sanction their corrupt politicians and officials. What will that mean for the future of democracy and good governance?
For the information of the public, I have never looked for, asked for or expected any position in the new PPP/C government nor will I accept one. I continue to wish the best for Guyana under the PPP/C government.
Yours truly,
Geoffrey Da Silva
