OPINION: Corruption perception: SN took a sledgehammer to the PPP Gov’t

Last Updated on Tuesday, 18 February 2025, 20:31 by Writer

by GHK Lall

I was waiting for SN to take a breath, actually come to a full stop on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index. Its February 17, 2025 editorial titled “Corruption perception and reality” was a total whipping and stripping of the PPP Government. Guyanese who harbor ideas of defending the government are better off ducking from the corruption issue. Hon. Minister Gail Texeira stuck her head in the corruption oven. SN’s editorial handed it back to her on a platter. Bon appétit, Mademoiselle Texeira. Like Excellency Ali, the honorable minister is defending the indefensible, and both national superstars know it.

The reality of corruption in Guyana under the PPP Government is that even dishonest Guyanese, diehard party supporters, and those given to diabolically clever financial enterprises will freely admit to its massive presence. Corruption is that thick, great, monstrosity locally, thanks to the PPP as group and government. Walk into a government office and tumble. It is corruption tripping up. Apply for a service, or respond to a public tender, and it’s over before one page of paper has been read. The game is that fixed. But that is not called corruption by the government. It is called business and clean governance. One element in the government and its leaders’ self-protective strategy is conspicuous: one day in the news, day two in the toilet. Attention span is that slim, and there is that separate factor: who cares? It is invisible money, plus corruption is believed to be a peaceful and bloodless crime. It is not. It is not called white-collar for nothing. Anybody seeing any blood anywhere, any stained clothes. Further, government leaders are trying their best to smother assertions that processes are stained, and its people have stained hands. As crime goes, corruption is a sweet one. No violence, no victims.

When the taxpayers come around finally to that place of discovery, that’s when the real violence starts. It is the first fallout of corruption in the billions. When the Guyanese who are crying out about the cost of living, they don’t know how much political and business (elite) corruption is responsible. They are that close to it, when they can’t buy food, despite the passage of record budget after record budget. Those billions, those huge fractions, from the national budgets are going to somebody, and it is not to them. From the public secret of private sector inputs into record-breaking budgets to feather their own nests, and the PPP Government readily integrating those, the two embody the pervasive corruptions of the political and business elite that Transparency International put before the public. After all, the private sector has got to get some return for the billions it invested in the PPP during the last elections. In the U.S. the farming sector, the defense industry, the oil companies, and the financial services industry are active donors, reap rich rewards. Thus, what’s good in Uncle Sam territory, must be good for Guyana, too. What I am positing is that the whole system is gamed into its present state of near total decay. From budget runup-input to allocations to tender awards to work performance to targeted supplements, they are all to keep the PPP Government’s corruption machinery well-oiled and well-functioning.

The SN editorial was a majestic and scorching dissection of how and where and how much things are corrupt here. I think the editorial faltered when it used that 5% corruption number as a level. I see it differently. What happens with other tender awards when all the bidders are PPP cronies, some closer in the pecking order? The losers are not really losers, for they know that their turn will come. The keys are sealed lips and no boat rocking, as there is enough to go round. The tender board nest inspires patience. How greater is the corruption percentage, when outsiders (non-PPP 4F bodies) should have won a bid hands down, but opted for resigned silence due to fear of being blacklisted? How many of this type of loser bidders are they? What percentage do they total? What happened to those bids that were won that were not as egregious as Tepui and the one for the school in Region 10? In other words, there was some hanky-panky with the winning award, but it was not that bad, not enough to stick out in the face. The invitation to the few frank Guyanese left in this society is for them to do the addition of those three categories in some shape or form involved in a half-trillion guzzling from the public trough. The percentage of corruption, colluding, and condoning outstrips 5%, perhaps even double that optimistic number. Think of this: 5% of a $500 billion plus public works budget is $25 billion. Add the infrastructure budgets of the last several years, and with 5% still retained, the corruption picture glitters. Not bad for a day’s work, though everyone knows that it is not 5%.

Where are the watchdogs when the procurement commission is content to be pawn and phantom when certain people are involved? When two senior public servants resign under a cloud, what does that say of the possible elevated tentacles of corruption? When one is recycled into a bigger role, the architects of corruption can no longer hide, not even behind words. It’s not how much corruption. As Transparency reported, it’s the big kahunas.