Stabroek News, April 18, 2008
http://www.stabroeknews.com/?p
Last Tuesday President Bharrat Jagdeo made a clinical pronouncement on
graft and corruption. In response to a question raised at his press
conference about the recent Customs/Fidelity alleged fraud he read
what appeared to be nothing short of a 'riot act' that is designed,
it appears, to remove what is widely believed to be one of the oldest
- and, for the businessmen and Customs officials who have benefited
from the practice - most lucrative forms of corruption in Guyana.
And if the President is to be taken at his word the reported
"shakedown" involving Fidelity, a local distribution company and
Customs officials, could trigger a far wider investigation into what,
by the President's own admission, has been a sustained plundering of
the public treasury arising out of collusion between customs
functionaries and importers.
What exactly did the President say? He said, among other things, that
he had learnt during a meeting with the Commissioner General of the
Guyana Revenue Authority of "what seems to be a major ring operating
in the Customs area;" that the ring extends "beyond the Fidelity
issue;" and that " some of the people who have been working in civil
service jobs… have assets that are a hundred times, five hundred times
their accumulated income."
Intriguingly, President Jagdeo alluded to the "far reach" of some of
the people who may be implicated in the Fidelity scam and anticipated
that those people may well engage in "quite a lot of lobbying,"
presumably to have themselves exonerated and perhaps even to seek to
implicate others. "If anyone had any intention of coming to see me or
lobby me," the President declared, "tell them not to. I don't want to
hear any calls about who is innocent and who is guilty;"
And then the President said that he had heard that others, "including
government officials" had been approached. The names of those
officials, the President said, should be given to the investigating
team. And to cap what is potentially a far-reaching pronouncement the
President gave notice that "there is no one who is protected."
There is a profound and multi-faceted significance to the President's
pronouncement. First, it amounts to an open admission of an extensive
and highly organized racket underpinned by dimensions of graft and
"shakedown" involving Customs officials and some businessmen. The
Fidelity scam, the President said, "is not just one matter." In his
words "it's a system" through which "large sums, rather than being
paid into the Treasury, are diverted to a large number of people in
exchange for free passage."
The second significant thing about the President's statement is that
it warns off those who may have been implicated in the scam and who
may seek to use their "far reach" to lobby him – and presumably any
other government or party official who may have the clout to influence
the process; and that, the President said, applies equally to
"government officials" who may be fingered in the scam.
Thirdly, the President said, precisely because of "the far reach of
some of the people" the Fidelity matter and others will not be
subjected to an internal investigation, but rather, is being
investigated by a Task Force involving the Ministry of Finance, the
Auditor General's Office and the Police. In this regard the President
appears to be seeking to circumvent the eventuality of those with "far
reach" attempting to influence - or perhaps go over the head of - an
internal GRA investigation.
What the President's statement has also done is to place a huge
responsibility on the shoulders of the "investigating team." In
declaring that "we will dig deep" he appears to be anticipating
outcomes to the investigation that go beyond the Fidelity matter. One
is hard-pressed to recall any investigating team in a matter involving
corruption ever before having been given such a public carte blanche
by the President.
If the letter and what appears to be the spirit of the President's
pronouncement on the Fidelity matter is enforced by the investigating
team we can anticipate – again according to the President – a careful
examination of "assets", among other things – a pronouncement that
implies that those who have benefited 'big time' from the Fidelity
scam and other scams will be targeted.
The hundred million dollar question, of course, is whether the
investigation will take the course outlined in the sentiments
expressed by the President or whether it will simply evaporate in a
mist of tokenistic disciplinary measures and yet another "shakeup" in
Customs administration that leaves the system open to still more scams
and rackets. The President's statement at last Tuesday's press
conference is, in a very real sense, a challenge to his own
determination – and the determination of the institutions and
individuals charged with investigating the Fidelity scam – to help rid
his administration of the cloud of corruption that hovers over it.
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