THE Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) and the State Asset Recovery Unit (SARU) are important in the fight against crime and holding to account those responsible for such conduct. SOCU provides reinforcement to the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Act, in that it aids efforts to ensure that money acquired through illicit activities is not being placed in officialdom. SARU seeks to track assets of the state in efforts to ensure they were/are not being misappropriated.Laws and rules are, in the two stated instances, necessary to avoid the privileged and well-connected from abusing their position and acquiring wealth through illicit means. And at the level of Government, it signals commitment to engage in the practise of good governance. Where these institutions are expected to be given the requisite resources to execute their mandate, it helps the country’s image and bodes well in reducing the perception of corruption on the international transparency index.

This society has experienced public officials — known to be on fixed income — moving from rags to riches in a very short period. Citizens have also seen disregard for the functioning of the Integrity Commission and Revenue Authority, both of which are legal entities.

Stories can be recounted of officials’ abuse of state property. A prevalent instance is the use of state motor vehicles driven by persons employed by the Government transporting children, spouses and party functionaries. These drivers have often been subjected to the indignity of having to wait for extensive hours whilst the assignee engages in non-official activities. This is a form of corruption, given that it is an abuse of state resources.

Money laundering and financing of terrorism at the level of officialdom can operate in various forms, such as in construction, real estate and state procurement, where the connected are given access to state land for home construction, or businesses are used to front laundering of money. These constitute corrupt practices
Elected officials getting access to state property at dirt cheap prices, building on or renovating same, and selling to characters whose sources of funding are questionable also constitute corrupt practices.

The brunt of the law must bear down wherever misconduct occurs, because the assets of the state belong to the people. Elected or appointed officials are privileged to manage these assets on behalf of the people and for the people’s benefit; and they must so do. Thus where SOCU and SARU are necessary to check the tendency to engage in excesses and abuse of the state, they serve the public good.

Public conversations on the roles of these institutions and their relevance augur well for better understanding of how the state can be managed. Arguments about their reach can help in defining what needs to be done, and are important in the presence of a view that the present law to deal with infraction cannot hold accountable those who, in the past, may have abused their privilege. This begs the question whether such laws, including making the Integrity Commission more effective, were deliberately not put in place in the past to hold persons to account.

Given its unique mandate, the consideration to move SOCU out of the ambit of the Guyana Police Force is an encouraging sign. While the Police Force, as an institution, is tasked with crime management, the special authority granted to SOCU to zero in on a special type of crime — guided by regional and international specifications — requires some degree of autonomy and special resources, inclusive of skills, to make Guyana compliant with its external counterparts.

SARU also needs similar independence. Hopefully, this will be looked at as a matter of necessity for the country’s growth and development; and particularly where this body in housed under the Office of the President, avoiding any president moving to stymie its work.

In our polarising and accusatory political landscape, comity in fighting corruption requires needed space away from the political directive. Making SARU and SOCU effective will help in improving and providing the quality of governance the people have been clamouring for and deserve.

That these laws are not only for the elected, but for all who operate within the country’s jurisprudence, makes all equal in the eyes of the law; which is fundamental to ensuring equity in the society. Where the nation today is seeing efforts toward putting such in place to serve as deterrence for those who have intention to use the state and its resources to engage in nefarious conduct, the country is moving in a positive direction.

At the same time, it ought to be said that laws will be meaningless if those who commit, or have committed, offences are not placed before the courts.