Guyana is making genuine good faith efforts to fight corruption
Guyana
The objectionable narrative from Stabroek News, via its editorial headlined ‘Regional anti-corruption conference’ on April 23, 2023, serve the single purpose of feeding into the narrative of naysayers in Guyana – the usual suspects whose agenda remains unchanged and visible, conveniently enough, only when the PPP/C Administration is in Office. The assertion by Stabroek New that: “All that Minister Teixeira likely succeeded in doing at the Conference, was persuade the other regional participants that the government here was not fully committed to addressing corruption,” is imprudent.
The facts of the matter of corruption are as follows:
FACT 1: At no time was an insinuation made that corruption is not a problem; rather the objection is that non-empirical, non-scientific, data cannot be the standard by which such a serious issue is measured by Transparency International and the World Justice Project.
For example, the World Justice Project explains that its methodology employs the use of a survey “that highlight perceptions and experiences” and features “perception-based questions” and “experience-based questions” in its questionnaire.
Transparency International’s approach is the same, since it “aggregates data from a number of different sources that provide perceptions among business people and country experts” in a country. Minister Teixeira questioned if this unknown minute number of persons was sufficient to castigate an entire country?
Stabroek News’ defence of the work of Transparency International cannot detract from the fact that by its own admission TI and Inter-national Financial Institutions accept that the CPI I is based on non-empirical, non-scientific, data. This cannot be an acceptable basis to paint countries in the Global South in a negative light.
This fact is neither new nor unheard of; according to a Centre for Global Development 2013 blog post, “the CPI embeds a powerful and misleading elite bias in popular perceptions of corruption, potentially contributing to a vicious cycle and at the same time incentivizing inappropriate policy responses. The index corrupts perceptions to the extent that it’s hard to see a justification for its continuing publication.”
Stabroek News does not seem to find it highly coincidental that the Global South made up mainly of developing countries is also made up of people of colour.
Consequently, the opinion expressed in the Editorial, “…was she really trying to suggest that in terms of corruption Guyana, for example, equated to mature Scandinavian democracies” can only be described as obtuse.
In fact, the Minister re-affirmed the Government’s commitment to prevent, detect, investigate and enforce the constitutional and statutory framework against corruption and to build resilient institutions.
FACT 2: Efforts are being made to strengthen Guyana’s anti-corruption framework – a fact that the perceptions-based reporting ignore.
The Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, last year, published guided a 26-page document, titled ‘Cooperative Republic of Guyana: Anti-Corruption Frame-work – Fact Sheet and Detailed Framework 2022’, which might prove instructive for some who are intent on conveying the impression that nothing is being done to address the corruption challenge.
At an international level, Guyana’s reporting is done under two major conventions. Firstly, the Inter-American Convention against Corruption (IACAC) under the Organisation of American
States (OAS) was the first multilateral anti-corruption treaty instrument negotiated in the world. The Committee of Experts of the Follow-up Mechanism for the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption (MESICIC) of the OAS is the Follow-Up Mechanism for the implementation of the IACAC. Secondly, the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) was adopted by the UN General Assembly on October 31, 2003. The UNCAC entered into force on the December 14, 2005. Guyana ratified both conventions on December 11, 2000, and April 16, 2008 respectively.
Guyana has reported to both bodies in keeping with their treaty obligations; Guyana is now in its 6th cycle review of the IACAC and the 2nd assessment at the UNCAC.
At the national level, a National Coordinating Committee (NCC) on Anti-Corruption with regard to Guyana’s treaty obligations which involves a cross-section of government agencies was established. This committee works on not only ensuring that Guyana is compliant with its reporting obligations, but also on capacity building and maximizing the synergies that exist among agencies. The NCC meets on a bi-monthly basis and 16 agencies are currently represented on the Committee.
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