The best option is open governance and more open governance

Dear Editor,

We were confident you would support the Transparency Institute Guyana Inc’s (TIGI) call for open governance in any investment in a gas pipeline from our offshore oil and gas fields. However, we should like to declare that our call for open governance is not only in this matter. Open governance is always required.

In fact, Transparency International (TI), with whom TIGI is affiliated, has upped its strategy to call for open governance from every government around the globe. No longer are we to defer to secrecies purportedly for our own good. The world has moved on, and such mysteries are like what ‘Edger Boy’ from the Demerara

Biscuit Factory was in the 1960s, two for a cent, or genips @100 for a cent.

It seems that the Private Sector Commission (PSC) is also revealing itself to be a confederate of closed governance. Its chairman has said that he can speak with certainty because he is privy to information not known to many in the public and other organizations. Doesn’t he realize he is also excluding the information from those many businesses in the private sector that he heads? Aren’t they also to have whatever opportunity might exist? Or does he intend the information to be only for special members of the private sector? And what about Public Procurement!? We understand that the PSC must work with the Government, but we need strong private sector leadership that will create a level playing field for all businesses.

Let the PPP/C government release the studies and opinions underpinning the selection of Wales for the project, and not do like the APNU/AFC and GECOM in not releasing their SOPs of the last election. None of us is privy to savvy. That is why the best option is open governance and more open governance.

Yours faithfully, Alfred Bhulai

Transparency Institute Guyana Inc