All the members of the NRF Board could be the president’s yes-men
The U.S. Federal Reserve Bank has a Board of nine Governors. To get on the Board, each of the nine has to be nominated by the president, examined as to his qualifications, record of service etc. and approved by majority vote at Committee stage, then sent to the whole 100member Senate for approval by majority vote. So, there is a real vetting and approval process of each nominee before he/she can get on the Board. The Chairman of the Board is said to be the second most powerful man in America, after the president. The work of the Board has everything to do with the kind of economy we have - stable, take appropriate measures to control recessions and inflation etc. Many State Boards and State Agencies have the same kind of vetting and approval processes in the United States. Now we are talking about Management of a multi-billion-dollar Fund Natural Resource Fund here in Guyana. So, right away you can see we need a professional class of money management people - economists, finance, lawyers – as well as people of character and integrity,
and independent minded to sit on this Board. This is not a Board where the president’s yes-men sit. This is a Board where billion-dollar decisions are made in the best interests of the nation. The president still has a lot of control – but not full control. This is a key principle in the governance of well-run modern democracies.
Say, we are going to have 9-members on the NRF Board. (Certainly, not 3 or 5). Who will appoint these folks? What approval processes have been put in place? A Bill had been passed in parliament, now probably already signed into law. Still, no one knows anything about any process for nominating and appointing these 9-members of the NRF Board. This group of 9-members will easily be the second most powerful group of folks, after the president of Guyana. Absent this process of nominating, hearings, approval by parliament, this NRF Bill is seriously deficient. The Guyanese nation will live to regret this Bill/Act passed in their name. Guyana is full of these bad laws. Imagine one Minister signed a multi-billion-dollar contract with Exxon - never vetted and approved by the parliament. The Guyanese people and their representatives in parliament had no knowledge of this contract. Negotiated in secret, kept secret for over a year, Minister Trotman still fought gallantly to keep it secret. Concessions for millions of acres of forest land signed away to the Chinese Co. Bai Shan Lin - but the parliament never voted to approve those deals. GuySuco’s Board approved a $200 million contract with a Chinese Co. to build Skeldon Modernization Factory. That Sugar Mill became the Skeldon White Elephant.
How and why did this happen? Not a single independent member sat on GuySuco’s Board to ask simple questions: Why expand sugar operations when world market prices have collapsed, when cost of production is 3-times higher than world market price? All the members of the Board were the president’s yes-men. The Guyanese people have to take a stand now and say: Enough is enough!! Pro-PPP blogger/attorney Fuad Rahaman says the PPP won the elections. So, he argues daily, PPP gov’t must be given full unchecked powers to do as they please with the Oil Revenues. No country, except totalitarian ones, are run like that. That’s why Guyanese people must rise up to agitate for a good NRF bill, a bill that provides for checks and balances, accountability and transparency. An NRF board on which all the president’s men sit will do none of these things