Dear Editor,

THE Private Sector Commission’s (PSC’s) ongoing antics over the State Asset Bill are becoming more and more absurd, and resemble a precipitous bluff.

The PSC is supposed to be a holistic representative body of businesses in Guyana. Most, if not all, of those businesses have international partnerships. Those partners are subject to laws, regulations and protocols governing their respective jurisdictions. Every time the State Asset Bill or SARU is mentioned, certain members of the PSC seem to have involuntary uncontrollable intestinal turbulence that triggers looseness of the bowels. Such is reflective in that body’s utterances.

People invariably become nervous, evasive or defensive about things for which they have direct or indirect guilt. Those behavioral tendencies are often implicit indicators that they have something to protect or hide. The PSC should seek to disassociate itself from such tendencies if its membership is above board.

Guyanese never heard a single squeak from the PSC regarding the rapacious misuse, embezzlement and rampage of State Assets over the past 20 years, prior to 2015. It is irresponsible for the PSC to seek to instill fear among the masses when that body is well aware that the majority of Guyanese played no part in the annual siphoning of over $300 Billion dollars in State Assets of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana. The average citizen’s focus is on bread and butter issues, not laundering money or massive capital flight.
The responsible management of state assets and initiatives against corruption are international imperatives that are gaining massive momentum and integral components for incumbent government’s policy.

The World Bank Group and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) have formed a partnership under the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative, which works collaboratively with developing countries, such as GUYANA, to prevent the laundering of the proceeds of corruption and facilitate the timely recovery of stolen assets.

President of the World Bank Group, Mr. Jim Yong Kim, cited that “Corruption steals from the poor. It steals the promise of a brighter future.” The State Asset Recovery Unit (SARU) was set up by the Coalition Government to address State Asset abuses and concerns in Guyana. Its functionality is to initially ensure that stolen or misappropriated state assets are traced and recovered.

Assets of the state fundamentally include Tax-payers funded tangibles, Land and Finance. Every elected Government in the world has a fiduciary duty to prudently manage, preserve and protect its state’s assets. Guyana is no exception, as the majority of citizens expect the government to ensure that there is accountability, fairness and equitable distribution of the nation’s resources.

In November 2009 at the Global Forum IV in Doha, Qatar, Eric Holder, former Attorney General of the United States, stated
“[W]e must work together to ensure that corrupt officials do not retain the illicit proceeds of their corruption. There is no gentleway to say it: When kleptocrats loot their nations’ treasuries, steal natural resources, and embezzle development aid, they condemn their nations’ children to starvation and disease. In the face of this manifest injustice, asset recovery is a global imperative.” (end of quote).
The PSC expressed its highest appreciation for the prior administration, an administration under which the state’s assets were being wasted, pilfered, destroyed, stolen or otherwise indiscriminately distributed.
The PSC is an informed party of prior consultations on the establishment of SARA by SARU, and given ample time to make meaningful contributions towards the Bill brought before parliament.

For the PSC to now take a petulant position against SARA, given past impropriety against the state for which they remained unreservedly silent, signals their complicity toward the pilfering of state assets. That position is indicative of outright resistance towards the incumbent for seeking to reverse a national disaster and bring this nation into compliance with internationally acceptable systems of appropriate State Asset management.

The PSC’s nostalgia, compounded by their attitude of resentment and hostility towards SARA, creates the impression that they may have been seriously compromised. A responsible PSC would have cooperated with government’s efforts to investigate capital flight and prevent money and bond laundering involving private companies. Unless members of the PSC fear exposure of some sort, it is difficult to comprehend their uncooperative stance towards the SARA Bill, which seeks to empower the government to fulfill its fiduciary obligations, constitutional mandate and international expectations.

The Government, not the PSC, will be ultimately held accountable if the prior to May 2015 hemorrhage of State Assets is left unattended.

Regards
Orette Cutting