OPINION: Conflict of interest: look inward first, let none restrain

Last Updated on Thursday, 18 July 2024, 19:56 by Writer

By GHK Lall

Conflict of interest is in season today. It is good. It is better that those who are troubled by the conflicts of interest in others, first look within themselves. First find what should not be. It’s a start, and there is hope, minimal as it is, that they may use the real or created conflicts of interest of others and do something about their own ones. But it is more than conflict of interest that is involved, what is presently compelling. At the core of all this hullabaloo, legitimate in parts, there is conflict of standards, conflict of values and, most of all, conflicts of character. When the latter is on permanent personal leave, then conflicts of interest gravitate to routine, settled culture. Conflict of interest—deep in its disturbed heart—can be challenged and overcome by a consistency of character that tramples upon conflicts. None is so meaningful, of such material promise, that there is looking the other way. In its substance, conflict of interest is about corruption. I start with me.

When I have a difference (conflict) with Stabroek News, Kaieteur News, Demerara Waves, and others, standards demand saying I disagree, distance. And when they do take issue with me, their message must come unfailingly. When I must disagree with Pope Francis and Bishop Francis here (and I do), then there must be learning. If challenges and corrections are required, they must come. It’s a two-way street, one taken seriously. Or else, self, this public arena, all are sullied, suffers. Citizens are not served. The point is that no relationship aces openness, principle.

Nationally, Guyanese erupt in hurricanes of protest over the rigging of elections. They should. But rage over rigged elections, audible and palpable, must not be the limit of individual and tribal concerns. If so, minds become rigged. Rigged minds that deny conflicts (corruptions) with the national resource inheritances. Rigged minds that compel turning of our faces when Exxon beat Guyanese with psychological weapons (a slave contract, alleged concealed expenses, an apparent apartheid offshore oil facility (what is off-limits)). When Guyanese think of what is devastating to the national interest, they should see the conflicts they condone, the corruptions that they should deplore, but of which partisanship muzzle their minds. When Exxon’s overtures and Exxon’s money and Exxon’s practice so disadvantageous to Guyanese brethren are what I endorse and sell, then there is that conflict of character which I highlight. Forget about money. Think about conflicted mind.

How can there be chatter about conflict of interest, when there are these contract awards that conflict with criteria, sabotage them, and then stopping short of calling things as they are. Heads must roll, and they can be found on the tender board, the evaluation boards. To do so would risk tampering with the “network” of corruption that the US Treasury Department spoke so pointedly about. When visions are weighed down by conflicts (comrades exposed, masters made to look lesser), then I would contend that conflict of interest is pretense, one more hustle in the con games played here. When bidders that should have won lose, but do not lodge a complaint for fear of upsetting relationships, muddying future waters, then that is contributing to local conflicts that is corruption at the core. We can talk all that is pleasing about transparency, but when contract award exposés are untouched, then transparency is the greasy pig that eludes. To talk about accountability, when inexplicable contract developments fester unaddressed, unpunished, and unresolved, then such accountability is pronounced in how much it is asinine. When there is this bull about contract awardees should defend themselves, that is more than making a fool of oneself about conflicts of interests and conflicts of comradeship. It is how conflict of interest is a toy rolled out and rolled around, as pleases. It is about conflict of interest that corrupt words and postures and reduce them to a joke over which nobody laughs.

With the above as backdrop, there is no anxiety, no resistance, in telling Excellencies Granger (elections), Ali (corruptions), Jagdeo (oil prevarications and deceptions), Norton (vacillations), and Hughes (hesitation and decision) where they are, where they are not, and where they should be. They have their interests. I have my own interests. And when there is a justified conflict, then there is only one interest that matters. My own. When there is craving for the favor of others, there is conflict of confidence, a conflict of character. Inevitably, conflicts of interest terminate where they do. In a no man’s land where conflicts of interest deteriorate to a conflict of crisis proportions.

Last, I am aware, have high regard for what Exxon brings to Guyana’s table, with its repertoire of attributes and reservoirs of history. I would conflict myself beyond repair, though, if kowtowing to political masters and a dreadful marriage to money are what I live for, all that I am. Thus, Excellency Routledge must be pilloried, if it comes to such a harsh pass. From that there must be no flinching. There is no joy in doing so, only the job that I have taken upon myself. And when the patriot in me discerns the long taloned arm of law and order, of an America beside itself over monstrous corruptions in Guyana, I say let the vacuum suck clean. There is disgust that this country’s leaders have subjugated first themselves to external resolutions for domestic problems, then an entire country to being the ward of another. Conflicts dilute what they have been elected to do. Conflicts because they go not where they should: across the table to navigate alongside their own. This is more than the sum of the contradictions and conflicts of Guyana’s political leadership. It is what curses them and condemns them not to care about a cure for what conflicts this rich nation so much that it is church mouse poor. If there is genuine seriousness about conflicts of interest, then start at home. Look inward and rise upward. If such is of interest.