OPINION: What difficulty with oil money specifics, benefit of opposition presence?

Last Updated on Friday, 6 December 2024, 21:10 by Writer

by GHK Lall

This is why Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo is so dead set against an opposition face and mind around public procurement. Dr. Terrence Campbell, the opposition nominated member on the Natural Resources Fund (NRF) investment committee had his say. Dr. Jagdeo says that itemizing what is done with monies withdrawals from the NRF would be a difficult undertaking. Dr. Campbell said that specifics about withdrawals are a needed step, constructive. Who has it right? Clearly, Dr. Campbell is on the right track. If there wasn’t an opposition presence on that NRF committee, not a dissenting word would ever have been heard. Be it NRF or procurement body or state boards, my belief is that the presence of principled citizens from the opposition has enormous potential, real value. Subtract Terrence Campbell from the NRF oversight group, and what is left is mostly a pack made out of putty. Like putty, there is softness and then sticking to what flies in the face of common sense.

There is something called accountability for this precious money from the NRF. The Guyanese people are due that accountability. In his own ever clever manner, the VP seemingly took matters to the extreme, in an effort to block needed specifics about their oil money. On what is it spent? How much of it, and for what period(s)? Nobody is asking for, or expecting, the granular, as in every gallon of gasoline purchased by a project overseer, or dinner for those working beyond normal hours. In his usual dissembling way, VP Jagdeo stretched out of proportion accounting for the oil money withdrawn to justify leaving things as they are.

The all-purpose and all-encircling paintbrush used by the PPP Government is “national development priorities.” I say it loud and clear: that is not good enough. Too broad and too lacking in meaning. National development priorities could serve as a camouflage for things that have some positives in them, on the one hand. On the other, they may also be the blanket under which a whole lot of crookedness could flourish. I would assert that any project, any job, could be made into a national development priority. Given the record of this country with clean governance, this suits the peculiar brightness of politicians who know how to misuse undertakings involving huge amounts of money.

In thinking of a parallel of what Dr. Jagdeo is trying to sell Guyanese as difficult and, therefore should be the untouched standard, the national budget came to mind. Using Jagdeo’s model of disclosure, all that is required then is for the government to report that GY$1.146 trillion is proposed for the 2024 budget, and it is all for national priorities. Taking this further, the Ministry of Education wouldn’t have to identify schools or other facilities for its appropriations. Nor would the Ministry of Health have to get down to the nitty-gritty of drugs and equipment. Nor, for that matter, any agency of the State. Therefore, it pains to disagree with what the Vice President is saying. I say, in turn, that he is dedicated to hedging (at best) and devoted to hiding (at worst).

In contrast, Dr. Campbell did not just call for specifics about withdrawals from the Oil Fund. His preference is for those specifics to be stated beforehand. I say, why not?, if everything is on the up and up. For there would be a straight line from the NRF in New York to the Consolidated Fund in Guyana, and from there the high-level details about the smaller amounts that are directed or taken out for areas that were identified prior to the proposed/scheduled withdrawals. It should not be unreasonable or burdensome to inform the Guyanese people that X millions (as a reference, $500 million) are for project Y, and so on. The internal and external auditors can take it from there. Here’s a thought: why not use oil money exclusively for some showcase project to cut through the haze and maze, constructed by Dr. Jagdeo? My sense is that accounting for this oil money taken out of the NRF is being made more complicated than it is, and smartly so. Also, I think that oil money is so precious that it should not be commingled with loans and other budgeted funds. Moreover, if a mechanism is not in place to segregate oil funds, then it is in the government’s interest, and to the benefit of Guyanese, that one be built. The government should not insult the intelligence of Guyanese by insisting that such is not doable. Dr. Jagdeo started down that insulting road, when he said that it would be (is) difficult to do. What’s so onerous about an oil subaccount in the omnibus account?

To wrap this up, I think that this cuteness of “national development priorities” is the convenient crutch on which the PPP Government leans to conceal what could be its own white-collar concoctions. For purposes of moderation and treating all concerned with some regard (whether deserving or not), I refrained from using ‘white-collar crimes.

As in almost everything else, what Guyanese end up getting from their government with their oil money is more smoke and mirrors. There is none better at those than Bharrat Jagdeo. An ethical opposition presence helps to bring some sanity to what could be purposely cloaked in mystery.