Private sector, Guyana gov’t at odds over urgency for one anti-corruption law

Last Updated on Tuesday, 5 November 2024, 20:14 by Writer

Guyana’s umbrella Private Sector Commission (PSC) on Tuesday recommended that government enact one anti-corruption legislation to simplify and fast-track investigations and prosecutions, but the Guyana government said the country was not yet ready for such one-stop anti-corruption body.

Chairman 0f the PSC’s Economics and Finance Committee, Ramesh Dookhoo lamented that over the years, the lobby for anti-corruption legislation was unsuccessful. He again floated the idea at a government-organised workshop on collaborating with the private sector in Guyana’s fight against corruption. “If you look at our legal framework for corruption, it will take massive collaboration among several agencies to bring a corrupt person or an entity to justice. It’s too much, it’s almost possible to do,” he said.

He recommended that legislative drafters “take all these pieces” of laws together to make it easier for the police, regulators and other entities to charge and successfully prosecute offenders who, if guilty, must face harsh penalties. Mr Dookhoo alluded to the United Kingdom’s “massive anti-corruption” legislation that no one could escape.

He also cited the need to enforce the Companies Act “much more than we do at this point in time” and for companies to also have external auditors.

But Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira later said that at this stage Guyana was not in a hurry to establish one umbrella anti-corruption agency. “That may come later. I think it has to do with capacity. If you have a big bureaucracy and you can have everybody under one roof doing whatever, then you go maybe to a ‘one-stop-shop’ kind of anti-corruption body but I don’t think we have the capacity right now and the multiplicity of reporting” to the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force, Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative as well as conventions under the United Nations and Inter-American conventions. It’s a lot of work and, therefore, we have to build systems and to develop capacities,” she said.

She also said that Guyana’s constitution, laws and party to international conventions and mechanisms in the Inter-American, Latin American and Caribbean and global arena were sufficient. They include the Inter-American Mechanism for the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption (MESISIC) and Financial Action Task Force as well as domestically, the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering of Financing Terrorism Act, Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee. “Our list of legislation that’s dealing with anti-corruption at various levels is considered at the Inter-American Commission as being a good one on corruption and they are not considered with anti-corruption legislation,” she said.

Ms Teixeira said MESISIC has pointed to the need to strengthen data collection, but that was expected to change with the liberalisation of telecommunications. Internet connectivity was expected to make it easier to detect, prevent and transmit information about corrupt actions.

The Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance acknowledged that there were “weaknesses” in the enforcement of anti-corruption laws, but also said the court system needs to fast-track the hearing of corruption cases. “Things take too long. It’s a combination in the anti-corruption areas that we have to look at: thorough investigations, investigations that are based 0n evidence and facts that can hold up in a court of law. If we don’t have that continuum between the investigation and the court, then you are going to lose cases or cases may never get there or cases are thrown out because of lack of evidence,” she added.

Mr Dookhoo complained that there was “a lot of subjectivity” by regulators in applying laws while others, such as public companies, are 0ver-regulated. He suggested that authorities might need to focus on private companies including the definition of a private company.

Looking inwardly, the Chairman 0f the PSC’s Economics and Finance Committee said his organisation was revising its Code of Conduct “especially when it comes to accepting new members by bodies of the PSC.”