One of the enduring developmental weaknesses in the governance process that has obtained in post-independence Guyana has been governments’ chronic inability to plan and execute major and strategically important development-related projects that have to do with the creation and maintenance of durable/reliable inventories. Our experience has been that some of the ‘finished’ undertakings turn out to be less than altogether fit for purpose, those shortcomings ending up, all too frequently, either being endured or, in the circumstances where overlooking the glitches is not an option, being remedied at the expense of the taxpayer rather than coming out of the pockets of the delinquent contractor.
The administration of state contracts for the execution of important undertakings has also become compromised at the level of negotiations between state and contractor. Some of those negotiations have become deluged in charges of generous doses of underhandedness that is derived from what is referred to in Spanish-speaking countries of ‘Mordida’. Understand-ably, some state-funded projects are believed to have become so seriously compromised by the Mordida syndrome that their ‘retrieval’ becomes well-nigh impossible. While the execution of state projects, have, in recent years, acquired considerable protection of state ‘cover’ it often seems as though accountability is not as weighty an issue as it ought to be.
It often seems that the preference of government is for simply getting on with it, acutely aware of the fact that, these days, spending on state-funded contracts sits behind ‘stuffed’ public coffers that remove the necessity for discourses on issues that are as ‘trite’ as profligate spending. Beyond this, there is of course always the risk that scrupulous official probes into seeming anomalies may bring all sorts of Gremlins scurrying out of the closet. This, in a sense, is altogether understandable since it is no secret that there are instances – perhaps quite a few of these – in which compromised state-funded projects are widely believed to be adulterated with corruption-related irregularities.
The reality here is that scrupulous probes could throw up the unpalatable which is believed to be – in many cases – the impetus behind what, all too frequently, is the government’s let-sleeping – dogs – lie approach to perceived anomalies in the execution of state contracts by private contractors. Ironically, the same petro fortune that has enabled Guyana, at this juncture, to afford to undertake some of the various development-related ‘makeovers’ that have been ensuing, allows – or at least so it would appear – government to perceive profligate, and in some instances, even questionable spending as a lesser issue than it might have been a few years ago. This, one feels, may very well be linked to what is a markedly reduced level of fuss over profligate spending and, arguably, even mis-spending on important, even critical state contracts which, at the end of the day may well not, in its present state, serve the purpose for which the expenditure was expended.
Meanwhile, the information at our disposal up to this time suggests that the extent of the anomalies that obtain simply cannot be set aside. The government would do well to move quickly to address the issue.
