Context: This is a rework of a similar article appearing in the Kaieteur News on August 3, 2009 ( http://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/20... )
Dear Editor,
I refer to the article "Burrowes city probe finds widespread financial irregularities " (SN August 1, 2009) and would be grateful for the opportunity to comment. Even though the article is chock full of innuendo and noticeably bereft of money-sum detail, I again sense that the time may well have been reached when the best among us should speak out!
We should immediately note the stunning hypocrisy that Minister Lall's comments in the above article represent.
For the first time we actually have a Minister's comments about what SHOULD follow an indictment of any agency by the Auditor-General. Lall's candour is welcome. The implications are enormous.
Hopefully, a national conversation on the phenomenon will also be facilitated through the article: "Greed, Genocide ... and now "Green": Corruption and Underdevelopment in Guyana" (http://www.scribd.com/doc/17958657/Greed-Genocide-and-now-Green-Corruption-and-Underdevelopment-in-Guyana )
Some issues arising from the SN-article above:
1. Why was a Commissioner necessary after the detail of the Auditor-General's indictment? Unless Burrowes was being used as a political football to intimidate non-government-friendly municipalities in the run-up to local-government elections, it follows that the Minister's comments signal that a Commission(er) is going to be appointed to investigate every Ministry/Department similarly indicted by the Auditor-General's report. There is no shortage of candidates in that regard!
But is this a realistic expectation in the face of smothering hypocrisy by the Bharat-Jagdeo government in Guyana, given what is by now seen throughout the Caribbean as a complete failure in leadership and credibility? With almost every passing day, a Minister in that grouping distinguishes himself/herself with arrogance, insincerity and/or corruption that is “ruinous to the state”. The latest laughable instalment is the decision to “institutionalize” polygraph testing in the Public Service … while excluding every cabinet functionary from such scrutiny. Since no credible organization (we have suggested Interpol and the FBI) is effecting these polygraphs, the government may have found another way to rid itself of ‘undesirable” professionals who dare to oppose them! No appeals are possible, or recourse to the court!
2. Will Commissioner Burrowes, considering the “excellent” job that Minister Lall says he did at City Hall, now turn his attention to explaining with similar efficiency why the GPHC (Guyana Public Hospital Corporation), which is now a separate entity from his (Burrowes’) employer the Ministry of Health, continued to use that Ministry’s cabinet approval (funds) to purchase drugs and medical supplies from specialized agencies both local and overseas, and why $608.4 MILLION of Ministry funds was spent on medical supplies which the GPHC cannot account for?
Or why the Minister of Health (suddenly) cannot be polygraphed even though he was the last one to leave the Ministry of Health before it was gutted by fire recently?
3. Would Commissioner Burrowes offer his professional opinion on the Minister’s comment that “ … one of the ways to ensure financial efficiency was to have strict adherence to the annual budgets…” and analyze this against the fact that the Auditor-General has accused that same Minister’s cabinet of presiding over “political gifts” to Ministries, Departments and Regions that resulted in “… the miscellaneous receipts of $2.053 BILLION at December 31, 2006 being understated by an undetermined amount...” That same Auditor-General would have advised Minister Lall and Commissioner Burrowes, courtesy of his 2006-report, that his cabinet has not seen fit to transfer the sum of $7.190 BILLION, representing balances held in 13 special accounts, to the Consolidated Fund. Who is accessing, and utilizing, these accounts?
It gets worse. According to the KN-synopsis on the AG’s report, “ … the Contingencies Fund continued to be abused, with amounts drawn from the Fund being utilised to satisfy expenditure that did not meet the eligibility criteria as defined in the Act …”
4. Finally, that same Auditor-General would have advised Minister Lall and his cabinet that, relative to "… strict adherence to the annual budgets …", the Bharat Jagdeo government would have elicited the following comment: "...the old Consolidated Fund bank account was overdrawn by $46.906 BILLION at 31 December 2006 ..."
If Commissioner Burrowes or Minister Lall cannot, or are instructed not to, respond to these and other anomalies relating to their functions as public servants, then they need to be reminded that: “…The Fiscal Management and Accountability Act 2003 (FMA Act) provides for the regulation of the preparation and execution of the annual budget, the receipt, control and disbursement of public monies, and the accounting for public monies, and is the most vital legislation governing the transparent and efficient management of the finances of Guyana….”. In other words, Mr. Burrowes and Mr Lall must now be very proud men … or very confused ones! They both are members of institutions that are in flagrant violation of the Act!
We are presiding over a crisis in leadership and credibility in Guyana … and a stunning hypocrisy evident in the disdain for the welfare of entire segments of the population! An entire social policy is apparently being formulated on the nebulous framework of "keeping certain people in their places"…whatever the social cost, and however biased the machinery. As a policy initiative, this borders on lunacy, or, if not that, the deliberate orchestration of national discontent and resentment. To what end?
Quite unlike Burrowes' self-serving journey into City Hall intrigue, the Auditor-General’s report for 2006 in the main gave us an insight into the " … widespread financial irregularities …" perpetuated by Guyana's government ... but will anything come out of it? The only clear thing transmitted by Minister Lall’s comments is that every municipality in the " … local government system …" NOT supporting the government will be targeted by erstwhile "Commissioners" ... while those toeing the line will be left unscathed.
This is the definition of hypocrisy!
Yours faithfully
Roger Williams
August 3, 2009
Showing posts with label Bharat JAgdeo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bharat JAgdeo. Show all posts
Monday, August 10, 2009
Friday, July 31, 2009
Greed, Genocide ... and now "Green": Corruption and Underdevelopment in Guyana
Greed, Corruption, Narcotics, Torture, Fire, Race … and now "Green": Guyana’s potent linkages to Underdevelopment
July 27, 2009
As a mostly silent world looks on, and as CARICOM diligently turns a blind eye to the escalating evidence of Guyana’s manufactured social, political and economic crisis, the “torching” of the Ministry of Health just before a pending and potentially cataclysmic audit by the Auditor-General offers new clues as to how degenerate the political climate has become. This is the fifth government building so “destroyed” with all its paperwork and files.
For Health Minister Leslie Ramsammy, already implicated by a US-court in the Shaheed “Roger” Khan issue (see “Genocide in Guyana … The Tip of the Iceberg?”), we should offer five viewpoints that place the Auditor General’s Report for 2006 in perspective. A synopsis of that Report is appended below.
First, Kean Gibson in her iconoclastic review “The Cycle of Racial Oppression in Guyana” pointed to the strange local phenomenon of “good thieving” and “bad thieving” to describe the astonishing rape of national and institutional coffers under the party associated with President Bharat Jagdeo. She also coined the phrase “corruption that is ruinous to the state” in that regard (see “The Marginalization of Persons of African Origin in Guyana” and “The Case for Scholarship in Kean Gibson’s Book”. The Guyana government used ethnic and other bias in its tightly controlled Ethnic Relations Commission to try to have the book “removed from public places”.
US. State Department Reports on Guyana for several consecutive years point to “corruption at the highest levels of government”. The Bharat Jagdeo-led government in Guyana dismiss these claims as “false”.
The Commonwealth Adviser Sir Michael Davies points to the systematic destruction of Guyana’s parliament as the highest decision-making forum in Guyana in “Needs Assessment of the Guyana National Assembly 2005”. He reiterates his findings in the report “Addendum to the Needs assessment of the Guyana National Assembly 2005”
The Guyana government dismiss these claims as “false”.
The UN Independent Expert on Minority Issues, Gay McDougall points to acts of racism that could just as easily have come from the story of the deprivation of India’s 300 million Dalits in the report of the UN Human Rights Council: “Report of the Independent Expert on Minority Issues, Gay McDougall : addendum : mission to Guyana (28 July to 1 August 2008)”(27 February 2009, A/HRC/10/11/Add.2, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/49bfa6ec2.html ).
The Bharat-Jagdeo government dismisses these claims as “false”.
World-renown Guyanese economist Dr. Clive Thomas speaks to the “criminalization of the state” under the tenure of a Bharat-Jagdeo-led administration that has literally squandered 17 years of local and international goodwill:
“…. Guyana needs intervention at the macro/national, intermediate/meso and the micro/local levels, Thomas said. He listed, "the superficiality of national unity, the dynamics of racial arithmetic and insecurity and the unrelenting rise of both benign and militant extremism." Guyana's predicament, he said, was compounded by the depth, scale, complexity and sheer persistence of economic misery and the growth of the narco-economy. He added that the country's entrenched totalitarianism in a multiracial society combined with territorial threats and the criminalisation of the state all played their part. Thomas asserted that Guyana's political and social crisis could not be solved without the intervention of the international community in the broader sense of creating the foundation for some resolution. "Just as our development problems are so acute that we cannot solve them without the support of the regional and international community, similarly, our political crisis requires this type of intervention." Asked to expand on the term `structural deadlock' during the debate that followed his remarks, Thomas alluded to the government's initial objections to the symposium and their attempts to review presenters' papers prior to actual presentation....”(Source: Dr. Clive Thomas: "International Conference on Governance, Conflict Analysis and Conflict Resolution," Georgetown, Guyana February 2004)
The Bharat-Jagdeo government dismisses these claims as “false”.
And so, finally, a Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) that begs the outside world to pour more funds into Guyana’s gaping wound … or else the pockets of those who are convinced that they are destined to rule Guyana forever!
By is this feasible since, given the abundance of evidence, one can easily detect a massive accounting frenzy designed to leave the country bankrupt by the time there is a change of government?
And now, below, a synopsis of the Auditor-General’s Report for 2006 … illustrating why the LCDS may be doomed before it began... because of the very real possibility that while government functionaries will end up with $60,000,000 houses (carbon credits or not), the vast majority of the people will probably get ... nothing!
Roger Williams
July 2009
"2006 Auditor General’s report states Govt. abuses public funds … Billions unaccounted for..."
August 8, 2008 By knews Filed Under News:
http://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2008/08/08/2006-auditor-general%e2%80%99s-report-states-govt-abuses-public-funds/
"... Despite the fact that the Auditor General Report for Guyana came in one year late, it has proved to be very revealing.
The report on the audited public accounts of Guyana and on the accounts of ministries, departments and regions for the year ending December 31, 2006 has verified a complaint by the Parliamentary Opposition parties regarding the Contingencies Fund.
According to the report presented to the National Assembly by the Auditor General, the Contingencies Fund continued to be abused, with amounts drawn from the Fund being utilised to satisfy expenditure that did not meet the eligibility criteria as defined in the Act.
“According to the statement, amounts totalling $3.945 billion were drawn from the Fund by way of 138 advances….As at 31 December 2006, forty-nine of these advances, totalling $1.721 billion, remained outstanding.”
The report, which was made public yesterday, after it was presented to the Speaker the previous week, also noted that amounts totalling $579.438M were shown as contingent liabilities for entities that were no longer in existence, yet the Ministry of Finance and the Accountant General’s Department have still not taken steps to have these liabilities transferred to the public debt.
As regards the affairs at Transport and Harbours Department (T&HD), the Department continued to request, and was granted, blanket waivers to award contracts selectively. This selective tendering was done without the requisite pre-qualification of contactors and the invitation of at least three contractors to bid for these contracts.
The Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation was also cited on the executive summary, and caused raised eyebrows.
According to the Auditor General, GPHC, which is now a separate entity from the Ministry of Health, continued to use the Ministry’s Cabinet approval (funds) to purchase drugs and medical supplies from specialised agencies both local and overseas.
$608.4 M SPENT ON MEDICAL SUPPLIES. HOSPITAL CANNOT ACCOUNT FOR PURCHASES
“It did not re-tender or obtain a new no-objection from Cabinet for the purchases of drugs and medical supplies…Further, during 2006, amounts totalling $608.406M were expended on drugs and medical supplies…However, the corporation could not totally account for drugs and medical supplies purchased, since there was no central point of accountability.”
In relation to Customs and Trade Administration, the Auditor General noted 17 Permits for Immediate Delivery (PID), with a total value of $2.832 billion, had not yet been perfected at the time of the audit in January 2007.
Incoming vessels at ports in Guyana totalled 1,089. However, completed ship’s files in respect of 243 ships were not submitted to the Quality Review Section, and as such, were not made available for audit examination.
$11M PAID FOR ARMS, AMMO IN 2003, YET TO BE DELIVERED
In relation to the Ministry of Home Affairs, it was noted that a quantity of arms and ammunition, to the value of $11.160M, which were paid for in 2003, had not yet been delivered, nor has the Ministry been able to recover the amount paid.
It was also noted in the report that several ministries and departments also recorded overstatements on their appropriation accounts, and the unspent amounts have not been refunded, “…Subvention agencies not returning the unspent portions of amounts paid over to them for specific expenditure.”
The Auditor General also cited in his report what he called the overpayment of contracts.
“Several Ministries and Regions have not recovered amounts overpaid on various contracts in prior periods….In addition, some of these Ministries and Regions, such as, Education, Amerindian Affairs, Regions Two, Three, Six, Seven and Ten continued to have overpayments on various contracts during 2006…One such example was recorded under the Ministry of Education, where $10.982M was overpaid on eleven projects which were mainly for the rehabilitation and extension to schools.”
$13.6M SPENT ON HIRING VEHICLES FROM A PERSON HIRED AS A MAID
In relation to the Guyana Defence Force, it was noted that the Force continued to hire vehicles from a civilian and members of the Force. During 2006, one hundred and one payments, totalling $13.697M, were expended on hiring of vehicles owned by one civilian, who is employed as a maid, and nine members of the Guyana Defence Force.
This was a serious breach of the regulations, which strictly prohibit sponsoring of tenders for Government contracts by Government Officers.
Gifts also raised eyebrows, with the Auditor General noting that the continued lack of reporting and accounting for all gifts to Ministries, Departments and Regions resulted in the miscellaneous receipts of $2.053B at December 31, 2006 being understated by an undetermined amount.
As it relates to bank accounts, several transfers from other accounts to the Consolidated Fund were not effected, and several accounts had overdrafts.
This was documented as follows:
Transfers not effected
(i) The amount of approximately $7.190 billion, representing balances held in 13 special accounts;
(ii) The balance of $34.336M held in the General Account
(iii) The balance of $527.139M held in Non-Sub Accounting Ministries and Departments’ Bank Account
(iv) The balances of 66 inactive bank accounts, of which eight had balances in excess of $100M.
(b)Accounts with overdrafts were identified in two categories:
- the old Consolidated Fund bank account was overdrawn by $46.906 billion at 31 December 2006; and
- Forty-two inactive accounts had overdrafts totalling $685.991M. Of these accounts, 24 were overdrawn by amounts in excess of $1M.
The Fiscal Management and Accountability Act 2003 (FMA Act) provides for the regulation of the preparation and execution of the annual budget, the receipt, control and disbursement of public monies, and the accounting for public monies, and is the most vital legislation governing the transparent and efficient management of the finances of Guyana.
According to this Act, a number of Public Accounts Statements are required to be prepared and submitted...."
July 27, 2009
As a mostly silent world looks on, and as CARICOM diligently turns a blind eye to the escalating evidence of Guyana’s manufactured social, political and economic crisis, the “torching” of the Ministry of Health just before a pending and potentially cataclysmic audit by the Auditor-General offers new clues as to how degenerate the political climate has become. This is the fifth government building so “destroyed” with all its paperwork and files.
For Health Minister Leslie Ramsammy, already implicated by a US-court in the Shaheed “Roger” Khan issue (see “Genocide in Guyana … The Tip of the Iceberg?”), we should offer five viewpoints that place the Auditor General’s Report for 2006 in perspective. A synopsis of that Report is appended below.
First, Kean Gibson in her iconoclastic review “The Cycle of Racial Oppression in Guyana” pointed to the strange local phenomenon of “good thieving” and “bad thieving” to describe the astonishing rape of national and institutional coffers under the party associated with President Bharat Jagdeo. She also coined the phrase “corruption that is ruinous to the state” in that regard (see “The Marginalization of Persons of African Origin in Guyana” and “The Case for Scholarship in Kean Gibson’s Book”. The Guyana government used ethnic and other bias in its tightly controlled Ethnic Relations Commission to try to have the book “removed from public places”.
US. State Department Reports on Guyana for several consecutive years point to “corruption at the highest levels of government”. The Bharat Jagdeo-led government in Guyana dismiss these claims as “false”.
The Commonwealth Adviser Sir Michael Davies points to the systematic destruction of Guyana’s parliament as the highest decision-making forum in Guyana in “Needs Assessment of the Guyana National Assembly 2005”. He reiterates his findings in the report “Addendum to the Needs assessment of the Guyana National Assembly 2005”
The Guyana government dismiss these claims as “false”.
The UN Independent Expert on Minority Issues, Gay McDougall points to acts of racism that could just as easily have come from the story of the deprivation of India’s 300 million Dalits in the report of the UN Human Rights Council: “Report of the Independent Expert on Minority Issues, Gay McDougall : addendum : mission to Guyana (28 July to 1 August 2008)”(27 February 2009, A/HRC/10/11/Add.2, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/49bfa6ec2.html ).
The Bharat-Jagdeo government dismisses these claims as “false”.
World-renown Guyanese economist Dr. Clive Thomas speaks to the “criminalization of the state” under the tenure of a Bharat-Jagdeo-led administration that has literally squandered 17 years of local and international goodwill:
“…. Guyana needs intervention at the macro/national, intermediate/meso and the micro/local levels, Thomas said. He listed, "the superficiality of national unity, the dynamics of racial arithmetic and insecurity and the unrelenting rise of both benign and militant extremism." Guyana's predicament, he said, was compounded by the depth, scale, complexity and sheer persistence of economic misery and the growth of the narco-economy. He added that the country's entrenched totalitarianism in a multiracial society combined with territorial threats and the criminalisation of the state all played their part. Thomas asserted that Guyana's political and social crisis could not be solved without the intervention of the international community in the broader sense of creating the foundation for some resolution. "Just as our development problems are so acute that we cannot solve them without the support of the regional and international community, similarly, our political crisis requires this type of intervention." Asked to expand on the term `structural deadlock' during the debate that followed his remarks, Thomas alluded to the government's initial objections to the symposium and their attempts to review presenters' papers prior to actual presentation....”(Source: Dr. Clive Thomas: "International Conference on Governance, Conflict Analysis and Conflict Resolution," Georgetown, Guyana February 2004)
The Bharat-Jagdeo government dismisses these claims as “false”.
And so, finally, a Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) that begs the outside world to pour more funds into Guyana’s gaping wound … or else the pockets of those who are convinced that they are destined to rule Guyana forever!
By is this feasible since, given the abundance of evidence, one can easily detect a massive accounting frenzy designed to leave the country bankrupt by the time there is a change of government?
And now, below, a synopsis of the Auditor-General’s Report for 2006 … illustrating why the LCDS may be doomed before it began... because of the very real possibility that while government functionaries will end up with $60,000,000 houses (carbon credits or not), the vast majority of the people will probably get ... nothing!
Roger Williams
July 2009
"2006 Auditor General’s report states Govt. abuses public funds … Billions unaccounted for..."
August 8, 2008 By knews Filed Under News:
http://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2008/08/08/2006-auditor-general%e2%80%99s-report-states-govt-abuses-public-funds/
"... Despite the fact that the Auditor General Report for Guyana came in one year late, it has proved to be very revealing.
The report on the audited public accounts of Guyana and on the accounts of ministries, departments and regions for the year ending December 31, 2006 has verified a complaint by the Parliamentary Opposition parties regarding the Contingencies Fund.
According to the report presented to the National Assembly by the Auditor General, the Contingencies Fund continued to be abused, with amounts drawn from the Fund being utilised to satisfy expenditure that did not meet the eligibility criteria as defined in the Act.
“According to the statement, amounts totalling $3.945 billion were drawn from the Fund by way of 138 advances….As at 31 December 2006, forty-nine of these advances, totalling $1.721 billion, remained outstanding.”
The report, which was made public yesterday, after it was presented to the Speaker the previous week, also noted that amounts totalling $579.438M were shown as contingent liabilities for entities that were no longer in existence, yet the Ministry of Finance and the Accountant General’s Department have still not taken steps to have these liabilities transferred to the public debt.
As regards the affairs at Transport and Harbours Department (T&HD), the Department continued to request, and was granted, blanket waivers to award contracts selectively. This selective tendering was done without the requisite pre-qualification of contactors and the invitation of at least three contractors to bid for these contracts.
The Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation was also cited on the executive summary, and caused raised eyebrows.
According to the Auditor General, GPHC, which is now a separate entity from the Ministry of Health, continued to use the Ministry’s Cabinet approval (funds) to purchase drugs and medical supplies from specialised agencies both local and overseas.
$608.4 M SPENT ON MEDICAL SUPPLIES. HOSPITAL CANNOT ACCOUNT FOR PURCHASES
“It did not re-tender or obtain a new no-objection from Cabinet for the purchases of drugs and medical supplies…Further, during 2006, amounts totalling $608.406M were expended on drugs and medical supplies…However, the corporation could not totally account for drugs and medical supplies purchased, since there was no central point of accountability.”
In relation to Customs and Trade Administration, the Auditor General noted 17 Permits for Immediate Delivery (PID), with a total value of $2.832 billion, had not yet been perfected at the time of the audit in January 2007.
Incoming vessels at ports in Guyana totalled 1,089. However, completed ship’s files in respect of 243 ships were not submitted to the Quality Review Section, and as such, were not made available for audit examination.
$11M PAID FOR ARMS, AMMO IN 2003, YET TO BE DELIVERED
In relation to the Ministry of Home Affairs, it was noted that a quantity of arms and ammunition, to the value of $11.160M, which were paid for in 2003, had not yet been delivered, nor has the Ministry been able to recover the amount paid.
It was also noted in the report that several ministries and departments also recorded overstatements on their appropriation accounts, and the unspent amounts have not been refunded, “…Subvention agencies not returning the unspent portions of amounts paid over to them for specific expenditure.”
The Auditor General also cited in his report what he called the overpayment of contracts.
“Several Ministries and Regions have not recovered amounts overpaid on various contracts in prior periods….In addition, some of these Ministries and Regions, such as, Education, Amerindian Affairs, Regions Two, Three, Six, Seven and Ten continued to have overpayments on various contracts during 2006…One such example was recorded under the Ministry of Education, where $10.982M was overpaid on eleven projects which were mainly for the rehabilitation and extension to schools.”
$13.6M SPENT ON HIRING VEHICLES FROM A PERSON HIRED AS A MAID
In relation to the Guyana Defence Force, it was noted that the Force continued to hire vehicles from a civilian and members of the Force. During 2006, one hundred and one payments, totalling $13.697M, were expended on hiring of vehicles owned by one civilian, who is employed as a maid, and nine members of the Guyana Defence Force.
This was a serious breach of the regulations, which strictly prohibit sponsoring of tenders for Government contracts by Government Officers.
Gifts also raised eyebrows, with the Auditor General noting that the continued lack of reporting and accounting for all gifts to Ministries, Departments and Regions resulted in the miscellaneous receipts of $2.053B at December 31, 2006 being understated by an undetermined amount.
As it relates to bank accounts, several transfers from other accounts to the Consolidated Fund were not effected, and several accounts had overdrafts.
This was documented as follows:
Transfers not effected
(i) The amount of approximately $7.190 billion, representing balances held in 13 special accounts;
(ii) The balance of $34.336M held in the General Account
(iii) The balance of $527.139M held in Non-Sub Accounting Ministries and Departments’ Bank Account
(iv) The balances of 66 inactive bank accounts, of which eight had balances in excess of $100M.
(b)Accounts with overdrafts were identified in two categories:
- the old Consolidated Fund bank account was overdrawn by $46.906 billion at 31 December 2006; and
- Forty-two inactive accounts had overdrafts totalling $685.991M. Of these accounts, 24 were overdrawn by amounts in excess of $1M.
The Fiscal Management and Accountability Act 2003 (FMA Act) provides for the regulation of the preparation and execution of the annual budget, the receipt, control and disbursement of public monies, and the accounting for public monies, and is the most vital legislation governing the transparent and efficient management of the finances of Guyana.
According to this Act, a number of Public Accounts Statements are required to be prepared and submitted...."
Saturday, July 11, 2009
A DEADLY STORM OF RHETORIC IN GUYANA ABOUT CARICOM AND THE EPA
13th September 2008
Dear Editor,
There is a deadly storm of agitated political talk abroad today, and Guyanese must pause and ask deep questions.
Like many other Guyanese, we may have thus far considered the issues at a distance, and must now familiarize ourselves with the detail. However, it is obvious that some recent comments are cause for alarm!
Smarting under the chagrin of a stupendous difference of opinion with fellow CARICOM leaders about the EU’s EPA, Bharat Jagdeo and Peter Ramsaroop have now transported an otherwise valiant stand on principle to the extreme of overtly proposing that Guyana “realizes its continental destiny”.
By any standard, this notion stretches the bounds of reason, and obvious questions arise:
1. To what end is this sudden, drastic overreaction in efforts at disowning CARICOM? Surely local opposition parties never envisaged (in their support for President Jagdeo’s initial position) that rooting for fairer treatment under the EPA would suddenly turn into a smear campaign against the CRNM. Having been slapped by the EU, Jagdeo is unwisely venting his anger on CARICOM and, by implication, fellow CARICOM heads. This is short-sighted, even foolish, for the short and medium term. A calm but intensely overt effort at out-and-out lobbying before the ACP meeting might bear more fruit, much like his initial presentation at the Lilliendaal "consultation".
2. What, exactly, is this “continental destiny” of which Jagdeo and Ramsaroop now speak? Does it include the fact that "continental" Venezuela, Suriname, and possibly Brazil, all have their eyes on Guyana's territory?
3. Is it the fact that Guyana is increasingly seen as drifting towards its drug-cartel destiny a la Colombia, even as the latest grisly stories from the USA about Robert Simels’ and Shaheed Khan’s efforts to “neutralize” witnesses shake the territory? What part, if any, does the soon-to-be-released report by the Jamaican forensic team on the Lindo Creek issue have to do with any of this? Or investigations into torture by the Guyanese government? If this latest move is nothing more than political grandstanding by a beleaguered political apparatus, then it establishes new depths of debauchery and irresponsibility for us as a maturing democracy.
4. If the CRNM has served us well in the past, why abandon it now with such careless talk? What, exactly, is the tangible evidence of a “next generation” left to face the EPA-tragedy? It is indeed strange that a government that imposed a 16% hangman’s noose “without consultation” over the heads of Guyanese citizens without heeding the pleas of the opposition, and that is now being called to account by its traditional union-ally GAWU because of the disastrous effects that VAT has had on their members’ standard of living, now has the interest of a “next generation” on their minds. Will the next generation of CARICOM states HAVE to be beleaguered by poor capacity and mono-crop exports? Does the agreement in fact give us time to establish this capacity and further diversify our economies?
Everyone talks about their being “some goodies” in the EPA, but no-one, least of all Jagdeo and Misir, bothers to tell us what they are! Are there exception clauses in the agreement? And are their other social issues in, or attendant to, the EPA that we should know about, much like a recent and astonishing Brazil-generated OAS-resolution on sexual orientation last June 3? Is this part of the “continental destiny” Ramsaroop envisages? Guyana's OAS-representative Dennis Moses now either refuses, or is incapable of, or has been otherwise not instructed, to respond on his lack of “consultation” with Guyanese citizenry on this issue. The potential consequences are truly enormous, and may span generations … but no answer from Jagdeo or Ramsaroop on that one. Obviously times have changed, but the questions in the article “Response to OAS and PANCAP on Sexual Orientation, and Decriminalizing Homosexuality and Prostitution” (http://rogerwilli.blogspot.com/2009/07/response-to-oas-and-pancap-on-sexual.html ) will not go away, and still demand an answer!
Dear Editor,
There is a deadly storm of agitated political talk abroad today, and Guyanese must pause and ask deep questions.
Like many other Guyanese, we may have thus far considered the issues at a distance, and must now familiarize ourselves with the detail. However, it is obvious that some recent comments are cause for alarm!
Smarting under the chagrin of a stupendous difference of opinion with fellow CARICOM leaders about the EU’s EPA, Bharat Jagdeo and Peter Ramsaroop have now transported an otherwise valiant stand on principle to the extreme of overtly proposing that Guyana “realizes its continental destiny”.
By any standard, this notion stretches the bounds of reason, and obvious questions arise:
1. To what end is this sudden, drastic overreaction in efforts at disowning CARICOM? Surely local opposition parties never envisaged (in their support for President Jagdeo’s initial position) that rooting for fairer treatment under the EPA would suddenly turn into a smear campaign against the CRNM. Having been slapped by the EU, Jagdeo is unwisely venting his anger on CARICOM and, by implication, fellow CARICOM heads. This is short-sighted, even foolish, for the short and medium term. A calm but intensely overt effort at out-and-out lobbying before the ACP meeting might bear more fruit, much like his initial presentation at the Lilliendaal "consultation".
2. What, exactly, is this “continental destiny” of which Jagdeo and Ramsaroop now speak? Does it include the fact that "continental" Venezuela, Suriname, and possibly Brazil, all have their eyes on Guyana's territory?
3. Is it the fact that Guyana is increasingly seen as drifting towards its drug-cartel destiny a la Colombia, even as the latest grisly stories from the USA about Robert Simels’ and Shaheed Khan’s efforts to “neutralize” witnesses shake the territory? What part, if any, does the soon-to-be-released report by the Jamaican forensic team on the Lindo Creek issue have to do with any of this? Or investigations into torture by the Guyanese government? If this latest move is nothing more than political grandstanding by a beleaguered political apparatus, then it establishes new depths of debauchery and irresponsibility for us as a maturing democracy.
4. If the CRNM has served us well in the past, why abandon it now with such careless talk? What, exactly, is the tangible evidence of a “next generation” left to face the EPA-tragedy? It is indeed strange that a government that imposed a 16% hangman’s noose “without consultation” over the heads of Guyanese citizens without heeding the pleas of the opposition, and that is now being called to account by its traditional union-ally GAWU because of the disastrous effects that VAT has had on their members’ standard of living, now has the interest of a “next generation” on their minds. Will the next generation of CARICOM states HAVE to be beleaguered by poor capacity and mono-crop exports? Does the agreement in fact give us time to establish this capacity and further diversify our economies?
Everyone talks about their being “some goodies” in the EPA, but no-one, least of all Jagdeo and Misir, bothers to tell us what they are! Are there exception clauses in the agreement? And are their other social issues in, or attendant to, the EPA that we should know about, much like a recent and astonishing Brazil-generated OAS-resolution on sexual orientation last June 3? Is this part of the “continental destiny” Ramsaroop envisages? Guyana's OAS-representative Dennis Moses now either refuses, or is incapable of, or has been otherwise not instructed, to respond on his lack of “consultation” with Guyanese citizenry on this issue. The potential consequences are truly enormous, and may span generations … but no answer from Jagdeo or Ramsaroop on that one. Obviously times have changed, but the questions in the article “Response to OAS and PANCAP on Sexual Orientation, and Decriminalizing Homosexuality and Prostitution” (http://rogerwilli.blogspot.com/2009/07/response-to-oas-and-pancap-on-sexual.html ) will not go away, and still demand an answer!
The church and citizens generally need more time to consider these EPA-related issues carefully at this time, and not blindly follow heady political rhetoric! What has caused this new and strange alliance of political forces in Guyana, and to what end this foolish talk?
5. Where and when did the hastily arranged “consultation” session at the Conference Hall translate into a promise to validate the political rhetoric and insinuation of abandoning CARICOM?
6. Where did opposition support for Jagdeo on an issue of principle become a national referendum on dismissing, or separating from, or vilifying CARICOM? The PNC and the AFC need to let us know!
Then there is the rather dubious notion that whereas Guyana stands as a relative giant in CARICOM, we as minnows in the "continental destiny" would fare better in terms of having our own way with our South American counterparts. This would be foolhardy logic, since our language and our history immediately puts us at odds with continental neighbours. Surely active and intense diplomacy and lobbying with ACP heads before the signing in October is the answer, not the demeaning of the institution of CARICOM. Guyana must take on this task of lobbying single-handedly with the aid of the CARICOM Secretariat if necessary.
The failure of other CARICOM heads to await the ACP-meeting in Ghana next month before consensus is very disturbing, but we are premising our denouncements right now on the prospect that other African and Pacific nations will not do as the rest of the Caribbean has done. What, if anything, have our diplomatic feelers told us about the likely position the African and Pacific nations will take at their upcoming summit? If indeed they feel inclined to sign, then does that mean that the Caribbean including Guyana never had a choice in the first place? On the other hand a victory at re-negotiation by an AP/Guyana alliance on behalf of the entire ACP would do the region well.
Now someone educate me: If indeed the EU can now take issues taken off the WTO agenda back to the WTO through lobbying, then what stops CARICOM at that time from itself lobbying the WTO against same effort?
There is a lot of reckless talk abroad, and more questions than answers available at this time. However, one thing appears clear.
We should all stand up and declare that Guyana’s historical destiny lies with the Caribbean archipelago and its tradition of democracy and conservativism, not with Colombia’s drug-saturated legacy or Brazil’s sheer dominance and liberal agenda, nor with the deranged and anti-American demagoguery of Venezuels’s Chavez, nor India’s ambitions of empire in Latin America, and certainly not with Morales’s socialist retrogression or some leaders’ visions of third terms in office. It is indeed tragic that it is the EPA-event that has finally caused Guyana's head of state to finally meet with opposition leaders on the way forward for "One People, One Nation, with One Destiny".
An initial decision by President Jagdeo to not sign unless forced to do so seemed prudent until this escalation of rhetoric. Both Jagdeo and Ramsaroop should keep focused.
Until we know differently, the EU is the enemy here, not CARICOM!
This should be our initial starting point.
Now let’s all assess the evidence and pronounce on these issues (the EPA, and the EU) in the following days!
Yours faithfully,
Roger Williams
13th September 2008
5. Where and when did the hastily arranged “consultation” session at the Conference Hall translate into a promise to validate the political rhetoric and insinuation of abandoning CARICOM?
6. Where did opposition support for Jagdeo on an issue of principle become a national referendum on dismissing, or separating from, or vilifying CARICOM? The PNC and the AFC need to let us know!
Then there is the rather dubious notion that whereas Guyana stands as a relative giant in CARICOM, we as minnows in the "continental destiny" would fare better in terms of having our own way with our South American counterparts. This would be foolhardy logic, since our language and our history immediately puts us at odds with continental neighbours. Surely active and intense diplomacy and lobbying with ACP heads before the signing in October is the answer, not the demeaning of the institution of CARICOM. Guyana must take on this task of lobbying single-handedly with the aid of the CARICOM Secretariat if necessary.
The failure of other CARICOM heads to await the ACP-meeting in Ghana next month before consensus is very disturbing, but we are premising our denouncements right now on the prospect that other African and Pacific nations will not do as the rest of the Caribbean has done. What, if anything, have our diplomatic feelers told us about the likely position the African and Pacific nations will take at their upcoming summit? If indeed they feel inclined to sign, then does that mean that the Caribbean including Guyana never had a choice in the first place? On the other hand a victory at re-negotiation by an AP/Guyana alliance on behalf of the entire ACP would do the region well.
Now someone educate me: If indeed the EU can now take issues taken off the WTO agenda back to the WTO through lobbying, then what stops CARICOM at that time from itself lobbying the WTO against same effort?
There is a lot of reckless talk abroad, and more questions than answers available at this time. However, one thing appears clear.
We should all stand up and declare that Guyana’s historical destiny lies with the Caribbean archipelago and its tradition of democracy and conservativism, not with Colombia’s drug-saturated legacy or Brazil’s sheer dominance and liberal agenda, nor with the deranged and anti-American demagoguery of Venezuels’s Chavez, nor India’s ambitions of empire in Latin America, and certainly not with Morales’s socialist retrogression or some leaders’ visions of third terms in office. It is indeed tragic that it is the EPA-event that has finally caused Guyana's head of state to finally meet with opposition leaders on the way forward for "One People, One Nation, with One Destiny".
An initial decision by President Jagdeo to not sign unless forced to do so seemed prudent until this escalation of rhetoric. Both Jagdeo and Ramsaroop should keep focused.
Until we know differently, the EU is the enemy here, not CARICOM!
This should be our initial starting point.
Now let’s all assess the evidence and pronounce on these issues (the EPA, and the EU) in the following days!
Yours faithfully,
Roger Williams
13th September 2008
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