http://www.demerarawaves.com/i...-on-key-demands.html

Transparency Institute of Guyana Inc. on Wednesday announced plans to lobby government to improve the country’s low corruption ranking by enforcing existing laws and enacting others like one on election campaign financing.

TIGI also wants President Donald Ramotar to send a strong anti-corruption message to the country by publicly pledging to improve on Transparency International’s (TI) low ranking. 

TI’s 18th Annual Corruption Perception Index ranks Guyana at 133 with a score of 28 out of 100, putting Guyana on par withComoros, Honduras, Iran, Kazakhstan and Russia. “This confirms that public perception on corruption remains a serious problem in Guyana,” said TIGI’s President, Gino Persaud. 

Vice President of TIGI, Dr. Anand Goolsarran could not definitively say what were TI’s yardsticks for measuring the perception of corruption in Guyana but he believed they included references to a number state agencies. “I am not sure specifically what questions they would have asked (but) I’m sure they would have asked about the judiciary, police customs, inland revenue and procurement practices…” TI arrives at its rankings based on multiple surveys of country experts, funding agencies, the World Economic Forum, the Economist Magazine’s Intelligence Unit and several other sources.

TIGI said it planned to engage the Donald Ramotar administration next year for the urgent appointment off a “competent and independent enough” Integrity Commission, the establishment of the decade-awaited Public Procurement Commission, enactment of laws for election campaign financing, implementation of modern anti-corruption and whistle-blowing legislation and the enforcement of existing anti-corruption legislation by “investigating and prosecuting the corrupt.” 

“We definitely plan to increase our efforts to have some of these institutions implemented and so on in the coming years. Some of the work that we have planned, including trying to seek funding, includes work in these areas such as technical expertise to help,” said the TIGI President. They could include draft protocols and bills that could be presented to the government or the National Assembly. 

He noted that Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment, Robert Persaud has already opened preliminary talks with TIGI on transparency for the extractive industries. The United States has helped Guyana for its possible candidacy to the Norway-based Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). 

Also on TIGI’s wish-list for the Guyana government are the need to strengthen the Guyana Police Force and the Financial Intelligence Unit, the appointment of an Ombudsman, the placement of all public monies into the Consolidated Fund, the advertisement of all public positions, and the strengthening and operationalization of the Access to Information Act. 

The strengthening of civil society organisations like the media, bar, accountancy and business organisations was also identified as a priority by TIGI. 

TIGI Vice President Goolsarran pointed to the need for the government at the level of the President to take civil society very seriously and accept rather than ignore the problem as the first step towards a solution. “The bottom-line has to be a genuine acceptance in good faith and it has to come from the very, very top and then it will filter down. 

“If the President were to tomorrow say ‘Guyana is ranking in this…I accept in good faith or my government has accepted and we will do whatever it takes to significantly improve our performance next year’ then the message is going to filter down,” said Goolsarran, a former Auditor General of Guyana.