CORRUPTION has become an epidemic in Guyana in both the public and private services, and government functionaries have never denied its existence.

However, the administration has set systems in place to ensure that at the higher levels corrupt practices are minimised or in most cases eradicated.
But corrupt practices that became endemic in the public service long before 1992 continue, and have even magnified in breadth and scope; and the government is helpless to halt this because of the political fallout every time they try to rectify situations where corruption stymies government’s social developmental initiatives.
When Ms. Sita Ramlall discovered the massive network of fraudsters in the registry and fired some of them, the collective opposition, including their supporters in the media, went into a frenzy, with protests and strikes et al. Eventually the perpetrators were re-instated, with full pay and benefits.
When the PPP/C administration established Parliamentary Committees and gave the chair perpetually to the opposition, one of the more respectable members from the opposition benches, Winston Murray, filled that position, and did a magnificent job of it.
As the committee perused the auditors’ reports, the depth of corruption that was inherited by the PPP/C administration in 1992 was brought to the fore.  It was when the committee was examining the accounts of the registry that Ms. Ramlall was vindicated, because of revelations of the extent of corrupt practices the report revealed.
Perusal of the Hansard would expose the duplicity of PNC parliamentarians when they accuse the PPP/C administration of the reported thefts that were recorded way back long before 1992; but because of the lack of records in some instances, and the inability to locate the perpetrators in others, the matters could not be concluded to the satisfaction of the Auditor-General, so they kept coming back in report after report, year after year, until there was either a resolution, or a consensual decision was made to write off the losses.
But when the opposition media reported the findings of those records as documented in the AG’s reports, they screamed in their headlines, “Massive  corruption exposed at ….” whatever the ministry or governmental institution they were writing about, without divulging that they were writing about incidents and episodes that occurred under the PNC administration.
And this is the genesis of the constant accusations of corruption within government systems.
The PPP/C inherited the Augean stables and tried to deal with the Herculean clean-up task; but the corruption is pervasive and invasive and without the cooperation of the joint opposition government can never really be successful, because every time they try to weed out the bad eggs, the opposition and their supporting unions block the attempts.
The various arms of the law should use decoys to obtain evidence where bribe-taking is prevalent as one means, with the installation of CCTV cameras being another; although deals can be concluded out of location.
But from stealing stationery from an office; using the phones for endless private telephone calls while members of the public wait for service; selling state properties and utilizing state resources for private benefit, among others, robs the treasury and the nation and has to be stopped, because everyone is affected with the propagation of this pandemic in our society.
Corruption does exist in the country, but not at the level in the government as the opposition continually alleges – and this was revealed during the corruption debates on NCN; but the corruption is overflowing in the opposition backyards.
Leaders who refuse to hand over the PAYE of employees to GRA; leaders who defraud aged and crippled clients of millions of dollars; leaders who use their advantage as parliamentary members to push their private practice cases; leaders who work out deals with contractors to pay for the education of themselves and their children; the Globe Trust fiasco – the list is endless.
Guyanese need to come to terms with the fact that when public servants do not deliver, the victims are members of the public, regardless of race, religion, or political affiliation; and with this consciousness maybe they will realise the truth in what national poet Martin Carter wrote: “All are involved, all are consumed”.