The hope is that with the cry about corruption left and right and from PPPite and anybody else-ite,  we well see a meeting on the mind on accountability. It is easy to cry corruption but which of them will say "we are for proper codes of conduct" ie elections financing reforms and full disclosure of funding with limits on corporate and unknown overseas sources. But this can never and will never be a PPP cry. They will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to be accountable via an open process.

It is all about public disclosures

It has been a long time since an issue has attracted the attention of the national media and the nation to such levels as the one involving the National Industrial and Commercial Investment Limited. Indeed, political issues, because they affect everybody, would form a talking point. There would be arguments for and against.

Criminal matters also attract wide national attention because people feel that anyone could be a victim. Everyone feels threatened. Indeed, this was the case in the wake of the Mash Day jailbreak in 2002 when five notorious criminals broke out of the Camp Street jail. The nation in the midst of its enjoyment, might have expected that the escapes would have been captured in short order. That was not to be.

There were cases of escapes in the past and the records would show that some of the escapees have not been recaptured although more than two decades have elapsed. The jailbreaks dominated national attention for a while but it was the criminal activities that followed the Mash Day jailbreak that dominated the pages of the newspapers.

It was more than six years before the effects of the crime wave were contained but not before the criminal gang had reached gargantuan proportions and necessitated the involvement of the Guyana Defence Force.
The issue at hand is not as earth-shattering as the criminal activities that grabbed headlines almost every day for six years but it is equally gripping. The nation is now focused on the National Industrial and Commercial Investment Limited (NICIL). This was an entity created by the Desmond Hoyte administration to ensure that the public corporations could be monitored outside of the public service.

There was the belief, and it still holds good, that governments are not good operators of business. It is still believed that business should therefore be confined to the people who know about business—the private sector. NICIL was therefore Government’s holding agency for its private sector operations.
Over time NICIL reported to the government about its operations and its treasury. More recently, with the spate privatization and sale of Government assets, NICIL has become even more pervasive in the workings of the government. It is the repository of the privatization funds. It is also the holding company for all the government assets, with the right to dispose of them following Government approval.

Under President Bharrat Jagdeo there was a lot of divestment, the largest of which were the state lands as the housing drive became a common feature. The Ministry of Housing might have collected the money from these transactions but it was duty bound to transfer the funds to NICIL.

However, there were other assets. There were buildings such as those owned by the bauxite company and now sold –Duke Lodge is just one—there were the sugar assets in the city (Herdmanston House and Herdmanston Lodge) the Sanata Complex, the waterfront properties once owned by the Guyana Rice Board, the lands on which the new headquarters of the Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry have been built and lands that once housed corporations such as the Mortgage Finance Bank (sold to New Building Society) and the Guyana Agricultural and Industrial Development Bank sold to  Guyana Power and Light.
One should not forget that some of the assets of the Guyana National Cooperative Bank were sold to Republic Bank and the proceeds deposited in NICIL.

The nation now wants to know where the proceeds are. While some people have moved the debate to whether the money should be on the public treasury or not, the fact is that the nation should know how much money was accrued to NICIL and where that money is.

The government is insisting that NICIL is not a cash cow or a silver lining but the nation wants to know what has become of its assets. The government talks about the audited accounts of NICIL, the last of which the nation saw in 2004; the nation wants a say in how the funds are used.

Political leader Khemraj Ramjattan says that the government has this money and that it could use it without Parliamentary approval. He is right. This therefore is what has the NICIL in the public glare.

The government says that the head of NICIL is prepared to answer all questions but we believe that the nation needs to see the books and details of every transaction.