Comparing corruption between PNC and PPP governments is a circular process

November 14, 2013, By KNews, Filed Under Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom, Source

Trying to compare corruption between what existed in the days of PNC rule and what has been experienced since the PPP took office is like comparing a parrot to a macaw. They are essentially birds of the same feather.

The PNC has no moral authority to criticize the PPP on the issue of corruption. It was under the PNC that official corruption became institutionalized. Corruption became part of the very fabric of the system of governance. It was no longer a problem of individual acts of private malfeasance on the part of certain public officials. The bureaucracy became so infected with corruption that things moved in relation to the grease that was applied.

If you wanted food items and you were not prepared to stand in line for days, most times in vain, then you had to know someone inside of the Knowledge Sharing Institutes which were responsible for selling food for the State.

If you wanted some scarce item, then you had to pay what the hucksters demanded under the table. If your phone went down, you need not expect that the phone company would come rushing to effect repairs immediately.

If you wanted that to happen, you had to make a “cow” arrangement with the repairs crew.

You either had to have connections, what Guyanese like to call “lines” to get things done, or you had to pay through your teeth. There was a time when if you wanted a passport, you had to wait months to get one, if you were lucky. But there was a certain individual who went by the nickname of ‘Yellowman’, who could arrange for you to get a passport in one day. He had the right connections and he got things done for those who did not. It came at a cost though.

If you needed to get out of the country for whatever reason and could not get a flight, you could pay a little something and you can bet that some person with a reservation was going to be bounced from the flight and you would get that person’s seat.

When it came to public contracts, there was no tendering. Thus cronyism was at its highest. Those who had the inside track enjoyed the greater share of the national cake. There were favoured contractors who monopolized public works, so much so that other contractors depended on them to get work.

There was systemic corruption and this type of corruption pervaded almost all aspects of national life. Walter Rodney did an excellent series of lectures on this malady, explaining how at the root of this problem was the contempt that was shown for the will of the people through the rigging of elections.

In effect, he was saying that if a government emerged from a corrupt and dishonest process, then this only encourages the lack of accountability by public officials. And when it comes to lack of accountability, the PNC took the top prize.

But there are no innocent parties. No government has been immune from charges of official corruption. The early PPP governments of the 1950s and early 1960s were plagued with charges about corruption. But it was the PNC that coroneted corruption and made it into an institution.

It is true that no senior PPP leader has been prosecuted for corruption. Neither has any senior leader of the PNC.  The charges that were laid before the Ombudsman which led to the sacking of a minister of the PNC government were laid by a private citizen, Eusi Kwayana, who, along with Martin Carter, left the PNC because of the rampant corruption that existed.

Perhaps it can be argued that no senior leader of the PNC was ever prosecuted because none of them were ever implicated in corruption. Well if this was the case it would not have been for the want of grist.

There were, for example, allegations of rape for which not even a confrontation with the victim was held; the purchase of a barge for which  no one was held responsible; the holding of a special account outside of the Consolidated Fund in relation to the sale of gold from Guyana and the sale of public property with tender, and of course, the controversy surrounding the virtual giveaway of state vehicles to top officials of the PNC just after it was announced that the PPP had won the 1992 elections.

We even had the amazing case of Desmond Hoyte receiving a cheque from the owners of a privatized entity for what was purportedly a fee for him to go to South Africa to speak about the merits of privatization.

Thus, for every charge of corruption laid at the feet of the incumbent government, a similar charge can be made against the PNC regime.

This exercise, therefore, about trying to compare corruption between governments is a circular process. It will end up right where it started.