While the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) legislation passed by the government remains wholly unacceptable as a result of the enormous powers vested in the President and the Minister of Finance, there was still some interest in whether the PPP/C administration would seek bipartisanship at the level of Parliament which was accorded the right to nominate one of the possible five members of the governing board.
Unfortunately, the government through its MPs on the Committee of Appointments behaved exactly as right-thinking people feared i.e. this administration has no intention of any reasonable compromise with the opposition and wants to be safely distanced from independent-minded persons who might tell it like it is.
With a majority on the Committee of Appointments, the PPP/C MPs disregarded arguments by the opposition in favour of their nominees and settled on Dunstan Barrow, a former PNC MP and past bauxite industry official. He was one of three PPP/C nominees, the other two being former High Commissioner to the UK, Hamley Case, also formerly associated with the PNC, and former Guyana Revenue Authority official, Clement Sealey.
Mr Barrow may well meet the requirements for the position under the Act and discharge his obligations with due professionalism but that is not the real issue at stake here. If the government was truly interested in the ‘One Guyana’ that its lead officials never tire of speaking of and serious about bipartisanship in Parliament what stopped it from agreeing to the opposition’s nominee? After all, the government has a lock on the other four nominees on the five-member body to be appointed by President Ali. One candidate is to be nominated by the private sector which is fully in tune with the administration and President Ali will pick – all on his own without any questioning or vetting – the remaining three candidates.
So were there acceptable grounds for the government MPs to reject the opposition nominees thereby scuttling a real compromise? No. After the shortlisting by the committee, the haggling came down to three names: Mr Barrow and two APNU+AFC nominees, chartered accountant and attorney Christopher Ram and the former Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Dr Vincent Adams, an energy and petroleum expert. Either of the two opposition candidates would have been eminently suitable for the NRF position.
APNU+AFC MP on the Committee of Appointments, Khemraj Ramjattan told Stabroek News that every time an argument was made in favour of Messrs Adams or Ram some counterargument was offered.
“They first said he (Adams) did not have financial experience but (then) we showed records that he was in charge of US billion dollars spending under the Obama Administration. Then they said they wanted someone with business qualifications. We countered that he had a Diploma in Business Management from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). They said they wanted legal experience and we said someone who has all is Christopher Ram. They did not want to hear that,” Ramjattan related.
“This man [Ram] has been at the forefront of oil and gas matters here from the time oil was found. He is a professional and has the requisite academic qualifications and experience needed that they themselves were saying is needed. So they know they did not have an argument so they just said ‘put it to a vote’ and don’t want no more time (for further discussion),” he added.
So the government MPs faced the dilemma of whether they could show a compromising spirit and select Mr Ram – eminently qualified for the post – over Mr Barrow. The government MPs eventually did what they no doubt had been instructed to do which was to ensure that Mr Barrow was the candidate for submission to Parliament and subsequent appointment to the NRF board by the President. By rejecting the opportunity to select Mr Ram, the government MPs proceeded to further limit the political space that should be available for compromise. This further ridicules the vague notion of `One Guyana’.
This winner-takes-all approach by the PPP/C was defended by no less a personage than the President who did not appear to understand the gravamen of the issue. Questioned at State House on March 6th where he had held a press conference, President Ali rhetorically asked the reporter: “Is the representative (Mr Barrow) a PPP/C person? The parliamentary process is that the committee selects someone of standing in a country and society. That process brings out a name. It is not that the PPP supported a person that is a minister or a member of the PPP. This is a former minister of the PNC. A former member of the PNC”.
The President went on to say that the public should focus on the three names (Messrs Barrow, Case and Sealey) as “That tells you how much interest we want on One Guyana.”
So there we have it. The import of the President’s statement is that if the PPP/C were to present for public anointment persons who don’t come from its traditional constituencies or better yet are, or were associated with the opposition, then all is well. That is, of course, absurd. The public – all of it – is well aware of the ability of the PPP/C to persuade people currently or formerly associated with the PNC/PNCR to join its camp. There are famous names in this category and some currently serving this government. No one is ever aware of the basis for the apostasy but the turnabout in no way represents political compromise any more than the parliamentary floor crossings that historically embittered the PPP.
President Ali also took aim at the low-hanging fruit by accusing APNU+AFC of hypocrisy.
“Look at the duplicity! When we had the nomination for the Chair of GECOM, remember what that they said? Christopher Ram was not fit and proper. That is why I am telling you; Agenda! Agenda! Agenda!” he said emphatically.
There is definitely room for APNU+AFC to be accused of hypocrisy in its nomination of Mr Ram and that is a burden that Mr Ramjattan and APNU+AFC will have to bear as they were part of the encouragement to former President Granger to reject several eminent persons among the 18 submissions for the chair of GECOM followed by the unilateral and unconstitutional selection of retired Justice Patterson. However, what does it also say about the PPP/C which while in opposition nominated Mr Ram for the post of chair of GECOM but now at a crucial moment in negotiations on the NRF rejects him for a candidate it had recently plucked from nowhere without a clear presentation to the public on why he was a suitable choice?
The public is now left to await the other appointees to the board under this most unacceptable piece of legislation. While bipartisanship in the parliamentary selection of the NRF nominee would not have cured what ails this Act it would have at least been an encouraging sign of political compromise. The PPP/C government has stumbled again.
