THE organisation known as the International Decade for People of African Descent – Guyana (IDPADA-G) has come out with an even more bizarre series of revelations at its most recent press conference on Thursday.
In a previous editorial, this newspaper noted from their own disclosure that: “… the organisation’s [IDPADA-G’s] salary-to-overall-budget ratio is more in line with the salary-to-current-expenditure ratio utilised in Guyana’s public sector.

“Interestingly, one would think that IDPADA-G operates within the third sector, civil society, and would budget internally based on the idea that its funding sources are never guaranteed as compared to the public sector which is guaranteed funding through the national budget.”

This newspaper went on to caution that “if the organisation has based its budget lines on the public sector model, it ran the risk of being unsustainable if not guaranteed a funding source. That funding source, however, cannot be the public purse.”

The most recent disclosures detail the extent of that unsustainability. In an effort to strong-arm the government to continue its largess financing, IDPADA-G’s leaders on Thursday signalled an intention to take the government to court. There seems to also be some frustration that the President, Dr Irfaan Ali-led People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) has been engaging with communities directly as opposed to consistently using special-interest groups as middle persons. Are governments not supposed to engage citizens directly in the spirit of Article 13 of the Constitution?

Bizarrely, the organisation’s leaders have now demanded that government release all of the monies which were initially-budgeted for it in 2022 as though there is an absolute claim to public funds, which the government is duty-bound to protect. As was previously editorialised, it still remains to see what exactly IDPADA-G’s mandate is outside of operating as a quasi-public sector agency as all references to its work in communities still required technical expertise from public and private entities.

The organisation announced Thursday that it had not only removed 10 staff as a result of its inability to pay them for the month of September, but also that it had other debts which were accrued. The debt was squared to somewhere between $6 million to $10 million for one month. As far as its work is concerned, the organisation will now scale-down its operation and function fully as a voluntary and advocacy group.

Journalists repeatedly questioned what were the salary scales for employees including the top position, but the response from the head table, which included IDPADA-G’s Chairman Vincent Alexander and Chief Executive Officer Olive Sampson, was that the salaries were similar to those paid in the public sector. The CEO segued from the direct question asked but highlighting she had relinquished her salary in part, and later in full.

As if its mandate wasn’t already blurry, one representative said IDPADA-G had recently disbursed grants of $100,000 to 24 of its partner organisations. Another member of the head table at the closing of the press conference reminded that IDPADA-G was not a grant-giving organisation. It begs the question of what rules truly governs expenditure within the organisation. A question which surely increases confusion as the organisation effectively swallowed up close to half a billion dollars of public money within five years but continues to scrape for answers of how Afro-Guyanese benefitted.