One of the distillates of the brouhaha over Guyana’s suspension from the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) is the question of the alleged four-month absence of National Coordinator Dr Prem Misir of the Guyana-EITI from his desk.
His reported absence would naturally be important for several reasons. First, the essential work such as preparing the annual report for submission to EITI would have been retarded and this was the key reason why Guyana was suspended. Second, it would be most unseemly and against the grain of good practice for the head of an accountability body to apparently disappear without a word to those he related to. During his reported absence questions were asked by this newspaper of the Ministry of Natural Resources about the whereabouts of Dr Misir but no cogent or clear response was provided.
After Stabroek News reported on Guyana’s suspension from the EITI, on the same day, while his government had not disclosed the suspension, President Ali in a Facebook video declared his affinity for the EITI and pledged that the country would be back in good standing shortly. He then sought to blame two civil society stakeholders Mike McCormack and Vanda Radzik who he did not name.
“In examining the cause and effect of this delay I have found out a number of things, one, the Government of Guyana in keeping with its mandate and in keeping with its transparency and accountability hired an independent administrator to complete the report.
“However for four months the multi-stakeholder group the MSG had the TOR (Terms of Reference) for this administrator on hold, on pause that is they did not approve the TOR for the international administrator.
“This begs the question whether there are persons on that group with ulterior motives… it is now after four months that we are able to have the TOR agreed upon with two persons abstaining. This is unacceptable to put a country’s reporting framework at stake”, President Ali asserted.
Ms Radzik and Mr McCormack have since explained the good reasons behind their decision. They set out in a letter to the President how in August last year Dr Misir had asked the group to retroactively approve the Terms of Reference for the 2020 Report which he himself had constructed. This was unanimously rejected by the multi-stakeholder group since it was defective and to submit it to the Ministry without their review, input and approval would been a serious infraction against the EITI Standard. Dr Misir’s conduct was wholly unacceptable.
Following this Dr Misir could no longer be found within the walls of the GY-EITI, they said, and he remained absent from his office for four months without notifying anyone. In his absence two senior civil servants from the Ministry were seconded to work with the group on amended Terms of Reference. At a statutory meeting in December the Ministry’s PS made it known that the Coordinator’s office was vacant, and the two Civic members agreed on a proposal to conduct a performance evaluation of Dr Misir. Before that could happen, however, they said that Dr Misir reappeared at the January meeting, where Minister of Natural Resources Vickram Bharrat also let it be known that he was negotiating with the EITI Secretariat for an extension of the Report deadline and asked the group for support. They only received a copy of the letter, however, after it had been sent, another contravention of EITI requirements. Minister Bharrat’s negotiation eventually failed.
For full transparency and clarity the public has a right to know whether Dr Misir had been absent from his office for four months and if so under what arrangement was that permitted. Is there documentation to attest to this? Was Dr Misir functioning in the Metaverse, perhaps, without the knowledge of the civil society members? If he was indeed absent from his post why didn’t the ministry declare this and then initiate the process for his replacement? Given Dr Misir’s special standing with PPP/C governments it is all the more important that these questions be clearly and forthrightly answered given the hiatus that has been created in relation to EITI at a time when Guyana can ill afford this.
Dr Misir himself has ventured no answer. Perhaps he might now see it fit to clear the air.