It would almost certainly have come as no surprise to Guyanese that the 2021 Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) lists Guyana as one of the Caribbean’s most prominent offenders insofar as corruption at the level of the state is concerned, the fact of the matter being that long before TI had made its report for 2021 public, the country had been struggling with prior blatant revelations of practices associated with official corruption. Indeed, it would hardly be an exaggeration to state that public opinion aside, official reports, particularly those tendered by the Auditor General, have persistently provided irrefutable evidence of various types of officially sanctioned chicanery that essentially transforms occupancy of office into the prerogative of ‘playing monopoly’ with state resources.
By and large, these accusations disappear like chaff in the mind, dispersed as they usually are by an overarching official indifference to getting to the truth and, as well, by a skewed logic that dictates that evidence of corruption by the contemporary occupants of political power are cancelled out by the shortcomings of its predecessor.
In effect, by and large and thoroughly regrettably, the findings and revelations of Transparency International which are intended, hopefully, to have a transformative effect on the behaviour of the state, its functionaries and those others with access to the public purse, frequently provide no more than momentary interludes of political cat-sparring and public fuss before they vanish to surface again when the next Report is published.
Unquestionably, in countries like Guyana, the practice would appear to be more pronounced as time goes by. Evidence of inappropriate accountability-related behaviour by state officials that falls squarely in the realm of official corruption appears to grow more blatant, more persistent to suggest that, these days, striving for accession to sufficiently influential office within the state system is, in effect, an investment in illegal access to the assets of the state.
To Guyana’s particular shame there exists a deeply-rooted belief that many public officials are ‘on the take,’ so that it is an eventuality for which potential investors come fully prepared.
Official public procurement and tender processes have historically provided some of the most blatant examples of the ways in which public officials shamelessly abuse the prerogative of managing the public purse. Beyond that, once foreign investment in Guyana takes root, there is a considerable likelihood the influence-peddling will become more pronounced as state favours are bought and sold like greens and vegetables in our municipal markets.
The most recent Auditor General’s Report provides some pretty blatant examples of crassness in the administering of public monies, presenting the state treasury.
Truth be told and with due respect to the revelations of TI, over the years, we in Guyana have needed no further evidence of the sustained proclivity of political administrations to capture and misuse state resources. Further, and the reports of TI notwithstanding, there is no reason to believe that the circumstance of official capture and misdirection of state resources will not become even worse, going forward when account is taken of the anticipated size of the public purse deriving from the country’s oil earnings. One might add that the anticipated increase in the size of the public purse is almost certain to create a keener rivalry for political office given what is likely to be, in the near future, a much more sizeable public purse to administer. The situation will, of course, also provide a significant range of means by which resources can be siphoned off by those who rule as more resources spawn increasing levels of greed and avarice.
At this juncture there is no good reason for optimism.
What, it seems, will be needed in the immediate future is the creation of even more stringent and robust protective procedures that regulate governments’ access to state funds since there can, at this stage, be no doubt that this needs to be done in circumstances of the acute integrity deficit with which our governments appear to be stricken. We have, over time, been presented with more than sufficient evidence that the erection of more effective barriers to stealing from the public purse can no longer be left up to those who are elected to office to properly administer it.