We don’t have a trusted government

Like a finely tuned Swiss watch, the PPP men and women do not show at the Parliamentary Accounts Committee (PAC) meeting(s). But 10 PAC meetings since that quorum change, reveals so much of what is governance in Guyana, PPP style. President, Vice President, and Ministers all sing symphonies when billions of dollars in taxpayers’ money are set aside to be spent for this or that project, some of them riddled with questions, suspicions, and rank constructions. Their sweet songs have the same title: See what we are doing for you…. On the other hand, when there has to be some limited oversight of how those same billions were spent, if they were spent at all, who received, and how many projects got shortchanged, then it is a different song from the PPP Government: ‘You don’t want to know… we don’t want you to know….’ Thus, the efforts of the PAC come to a screeching, grinding halt.

It is at times like these that I marvel that President Ali, could have the gumption and guts and ghostly nature to talk about how much he and his government are with transparency and accountability. The mere utterance of those words from him is a sacrilege. It makes the President himself into the most pathetic of figures: a man who has lost touch with sincerity, a person who does not care about his own honour. Because there is the PAC to interrogate on how the billions are spent, no matter how superficially. Yet, it can’t move off the ground from where it is stuck because of constant PPP machinations and manipulations. The Government is good at making speeches about the purity of its activities, but when its own glaring follow-up actions sabotages good governance, then we don’t have a trusted government with leaders to match.

Sincerely,

GHK Lall