Only a new government can fix Guyana’s problems

By Dominic Gaskin While willing to take credit for any positive developments that have taken place during their tenure, most governments are less keen to accept responsibility for things that have gone wrong during the same period. Our government is no different from many in this regard. What distinguishes the PPP-C government from many other elected governments of this era is that it has held office for twenty-two years and therefore cannot dissociate itself from the state of the nation it governs.

Dominic Gaskin

Around the world, most democratic countries have seen their governments change many times over since the PPP-C came to power in 1992. While this can blur the lines of responsibility when it comes to assessing the achievements or failures of the various governments in those countries, Guyana’s situation is crystal clear. For better or for worse, the buck stops with the PPP-C. The point here is not simply that the current government must take responsibility for all the ills that plague our country. The objective of this article is not to highlight all the failures of the last twenty-two years. That would be exhausting. The intention is rather to illustrate why these failures will not be corrected as long as the PPP-C government remains in office. Before a solution can be sought for a problem, that problem needs to be acknowledged and assessed. If an appropriate solution is then applied there is need for follow-up assessments to determine the effectiveness of that solution. If a problem is thought to exist, but is neither acknowledged nor properly assessed, it is difficult to see how an effective solution could be arranged and, more so, how the impact of any solution could be measured. A fine example of such a scenario is the case of Guyana’s unemployment levels and the recent admission by the Minister of Finance, when questioned by AFC Member of Parliament, Cathy Hughes on this issue, that the most recent data available on unemployment was from the Guyana Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey of 2006. Essentially what the Minister is saying is that he manages the economy of our country without reference to unemployment levels. This is pretty bad stuff, but it is part of a broader tendency of this government to refuse to acknowledge the existence of most of the major problems affecting our country. The reason for this is simple and bears repeating. After twenty-two years in office the buck stops with the PPP-C and any acknowledgement of a problem is also an acknowledgement of its own failure. So as far as the PPP-C is concerned, there is no unemployment problem, there is no crisis in the Police Force, there is no crisis in the judiciary, Guyana is not a narco-economy, trafficking in persons is not pervasive and corruption is not as rampant as the “opposition media” would have us believe. And what does this means for the Guyanese citizens? As long as the government cannot acknowledge deficiencies in so many areas it cannot begin to develop appropriate solutions to fix them. A new government coming into power will always be more proactive in identifying problem areas, especially when these are perceived to have been created by a previous government. This is one of the real benefits of a healthy democracy where governments change regularly – governments want to be seen to be addressing the concerns of their citizens. The need for denial is greatly reduced and solutions can be sought without fear of culpability. On top of being unable to fix what it does not accept is broken, the PPP-C government has unwisely chosen the path of challenging those who seek to highlight issues of concern. Each year the government vehemently rejects the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report and, in doing so, automatically sets itself at odds with anyone drawing attention to actual cases of human trafficking. So in 2013 when the President of the Guyana Women Miners Organisation, Ms. Simona Broomes risked her life to rescue a group of young women who were being held against their will and forced to engage in prostitution by an interior shop-owner, she was not doing the government any favours. From all reports there was a clear reluctance on the part of the authorities before, during and after Ms. Broomes’ ordeal to treat the matter with the urgency it deserved. Apart from their standard inefficiencies, there appeared to be an understanding on the part of the authorities that what Ms. Broomes was doing would displease the government. It was therefore not surprising that, four months later, Ms. Broomes found herself arrested and held by the police for questioning in connection with an assault which occurred during the rescue mission. Her accuser was the same interior shop-owner who had since been charged with trafficking in persons. The issue of sex trafficking in our mining areas is real and hot-headed responses to external reports and harassment of decent citizens are no substitute for proper investigations, prosecutions and conviction. The well regarded Transparency International (TI) with its widely recognized Corruption Perception Index also comes in for an annual tongue-lashing from various Government officials, upset with Guyana’s ranking in the index. Transparency Institute Guyana, Inc., the relatively young local chapter of TI has already been branded anti-government, as have its past and present presidents. The government is fighting a losing battle. Our people are not stupid. Everyone knows that Guyana is not a well-run country. People see corruption every day without the media bringing it to their attention. There is absolutely no expectation of justice at any level of our society. Guyanese have lost all confidence in the ability of the Police Force to protect them and to maintain law and order. Traffic regulations are savagely violated for all to see on a daily basis. After close to twenty-two years at the helm the PPP-C must continue to pretend that these problems are not as bad as they really are. Only a new government can begin to fix these problems because only a new government will have no reason to pretend that they do not exist. The Guyanese electorate may wish to weigh these considerations against the illusion of ethnic security that unfortunately still remains a significant factor in who we put in office.