THE significant achievements under the Guyana Threshold Country Plan/Implementation Project (GTCP/IP), which was deemed model for other threshold programmes worldwide, were yesterday recognised at the opening of a two-day ‘Close Out’ workshop.

The evaluation exercise which was attended by Minister of Finance Dr. Ashni Singh, Minister within the Ministry of Finance Dr. Jennifer Webster, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Mission Director Ms. Carol Horning, and members of the diplomatic and donor community, was held in the Savannah Suite of the Pegasus Hotel, Kingston, Georgetown.

USAID Mission Director Ms. Carol Horning

The joint programme between the Government of Guyana and the United States is a major US$6.7M two-year programme.

In June 2007, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) approved a Threshold Programme grant from the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) to the Government of Guyana to support the Government’s efforts to overcome the country’s serious fiscal challenges, while streamlining the business registration process.

The GTCP/IP began operations on January 14, 2008, and this will be completed on February 28, 2010.

The objectives of the GTCP/IP were driven by the Guyana Government commitment to achieving and maintaining fiscal sustainability through an efficient and effective tax regime, efficient public expenditure management, and improved fiduciary oversight, thus the main objective of the programme was to provide targeted technical assistance and training to the Government to support its ongoing fiscal policy strategy aimed at bringing the fiscal deficit down to a sustainable level.

A secondary objective was to improve the business investment climate. The benefiting agencies are the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), Deeds Registry, Ministry of Finance, National Procurement and Tender Administration, Parliament and the Guyana Office for Investment (GO-INVEST).

Consistent with the GTCP/IP work programme, the project intervention activities included improving and strengthening administrative and human resource capacities, policy and analytic work, and computerisation and streamlining of business processes; and the six reform areas addressed are tax and customs administration, VAT implementation, tax policy, expenditure planning, parliamentary oversight, and business registration.

The Chief of Staff of the project, Dr. Coby Frimborg, said that about US$6.28M or 94.4 per cent of the budgeted amount for the programme would have been utilised by the end of December 2009.

In brief remarks, Horning said, “I will like to acknowledge in advance, even though your conclusions haven’t been developed yet, the significant achievements of this two year US$6.7M programme.”

She expressed appreciation to Minister Singh for the vision, leadership and commitment to economic reform.

Model for other threshold projects
“You and Minister Webster and your team, along with the leadership and staff of the GRA, Customs Service, Parliament, Deeds Registry, GO-INVEST and National Procurement and Tendering Agency, have made this programme a model for other threshold projects worldwide, ” she declared.

Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh addresses yesterday’s workshop.

She also acknowledged the contribution of the fellow development and donor partners whose work helped to lay the foundation of the project.

Noting that she became part of the project at the ‘tail end’ of the programme, she stated that when she came to Guyana, she finally understood all of the work that had been carried out before.

“In development, everything is a continuum. It doesn’t start and stop with one project, and the fact is that the Government already had the vision before this project started, and with help from other donors, had put in place different reforms, and had an idea of where they wanted to go from there,” she observed.

“So that is what made it possible. It is still a remarkable achievement compared to other countries, so you can all feel proud of that,” she stated.

She noted that the talent and experience of the over 90 participants in the room, is ‘an incredible resource’, adding, “It is a rare opportunity to capture the learnings of this project for Guyana’s economic development, and help the Government and USAID and MCC to design more effective technical assistance responses.”

The USIAD Mission Director defined the Guyana Threshold programme as highly unusual, since it is very comprehensive and ambitious, underlining , “It was even expanded beyond its original scope during the two years.”

A section of the gathering yesterday. (Cullen Bess-Nelson photo)

She told the gathering that there is “nothing harder in the world than to change an institution from the inside”.

“We are all creatures of habit, and even if we have comments or complaints about the way things go, totally changing the way we do things is enormously difficult; so multiplying that into the various institutions makes it that much harder,” she insisted.

She said under the programme, there are many different and separate project activities and achievements, and each one is significant; but taken together, “it is the collective achievement of reform and institutional change that are so important and that have been so successful”.

She thanked the participants for “all for being champions of change and change agents”, stating, “Your work has been very impressive, and we hope to continue to assist you with other programmes and other ways”.

Minister Singh, delivering the keynote address, agreed with the description of the programme as a model, and expressed that there are important lessons to learn from such good programmes, “lessons that we should take away with us and replicate as we design other reform programmes,” the Finance Minister underscored.

Also, he reiterated that ‘work of this nature really exists in a continuum’ noting, “I say that I regard this programme as an outstanding success, and as a model for various reasons.”

Reflecting on the work that came before the threshold programme, and set the context for the activities that were implemented, he pointed out that activities that were designed within the threshold programme “really represented the logical next step on a reform agenda that had already been articulated” and “the programme was very well designed”.

“…this programme reflects strong coherence with an existing agenda that has been articulated by Government, and I want to make reference to a few elements of this agenda, and I do so, because I don’t believe that we have been as comprehensive as we should in speaking about the very, very vast amount of reforms that have been implemented in Guyana over the last few years,” he insisted.

“I think this is something that we should address our minds to going forward,” he stated, noting that the programme addressed a few major objectives such as management of government finances, tax administration, expenditure management, strengthening parliamentary oversight, and improving the business climate.

He alluded to the very considerable legislative reform agenda that, in some sense, went to a new level in 2001 with the enactment of major constitutional amendments which contributed in a very significant way to enhancing parliamentary oversight of the operations of Government.

These constitutional reforms included the establishment for the first time of standing sectoral committees such as the economic services committee, the natural resources committee, the social services committee, and the foreign relations committee, he outlined.

“But the constitutional amendments did not confine themselves to only these reforms; they went considerably beyond as it relates to oversight of Government operations,” he stated.

He said the 2001 constitutional amendments also enhance the mandate of the Public Accounts Committee, and addressed and strengthened the independence of the Auditor General.

“It is important that we don’t mention them in passing…because I have seen how dramatically the standing sectoral committees have changed the accountability landscape of our country, I have seen how dramatically these committees have enhanced parliament’s role in exercising oversight over the executive,” he attested.

He said these committees, and by extension, the constitutional reforms, have gone a very long way to improve the functions of parliament and its effectiveness of its oversight of the executive and ultimately, improve accountability in the country.

He touched on other legislative interventions, including a new procurement Act, Fiscal Management and Accountability Act, and Audit Act, which were all implemented over the course of the years in setting the context for the reforms that were to come, such as in the MCA threshold programme.

He also stated that the reforms go beyond just the legislative changes with new standing orders that govern the operations of parliament with significant amendments.

Dr. Singh said these new standing orders have, similarly, noticeably changed the functioning of parliament.

He took the opportunity to recognise the other donors that provided support over the years in the implementation of reform agenda, including Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and the World Bank and the European Union (EU), and acknowledged the efforts of various Government agencies that were involved in this programme, as well as GTCP/IP team, USAID and MCA.

“Our Government is firmly committed to continuing this work and to realising and exceeding the objectives that are set by the programme; we will continue this work,” the Finance Minister reassured.

“We look forward to continuing close collaboration with all of our development partners, and I am optimistic that we will realise the objectives that we have set ourselves,” he expressed.