Those contentious Bills

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Those contentious Bills
Kaieteur News, 12 August 2007

There seems to be no end to the controversies that surround some Bills
that are passed in the National Assembly. One of the recent Bills that
sparked a controversy was the Bill that reconstructed the Forestry
Commission.

One clause in the Bill stipulated confidentiality. “No person who has
obtained information in his capacity as a member, employee, consultant
or adviser of the Commission shall directly or indirectly make a record
of that information; disclose that information to any person; or make
use of or act on that information.”

Immediately the view was that no member of the Commission could comment
on anything before it and of course this would place the media at a
significant disadvantage. Undoubtedly, the media is privy to just about
anything that occurs in the country but any self-respecting journalist
would check and double check. According to Clause 123 of the Bill,
checking with the Forestry Commission would not yield results because
of the apparent gag order.

But Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud says that the people are
reading more into the clause than they should. On Friday he bridled
when a question was posed about the apparent gag order on the Forestry
Commission and in so doing revealed that people entrusted with
sensitive information have no qualms about sharing this information
with people who may have a vested interest.

And it seems as if this practice has been common. We have now learnt
that investors coming through Go Invest would submit their proposals
only to have someone leak the proposal to a competitor who would then
submit a modified proposal that would appear to be more favourable than
the original.

Surely this would be most unfair. People spend money to conduct surveys
and eventually to prepare the investment proposal. The individual or
entity that would plagiarise or copy the proposal would therefore be at
a distinct advantage. In the first instance the information to fashion
the package would be had at little or no expense to the competitor.

The same thing happened with people coming to exploit the timber
resources. The word is that some of them conducted feasibility studies
at great cost then prepared their investment package.

Surely, there is need for the government to protect the information
submitted by the investor. It would be greatly unethical for someone to
leak the information to a competitor who would not have spent a cent on
the feasibility studies. Minister Robert Persaud said that the Bill is
intended to block the leak of sensitive information, particularly
material pertaining to the investor.

If this is indeed the intention then the Bill is badly fashioned
because the wording suggests that everything is confidential. If this
is not the case then some legal draughtsman could have made it clear
enough to let people know that there are issues that they could
divulge.

It is the same thing with the Bill now commonly referred to a 2 of 82.
That Bill was intended to curtail the flow of sensitive information but
today it has been interpreted by all, including high level Government
officials, that no one can speak with the media.

The police are notorious for this. Every simple query is met with a
statement that the information must come from the Police Public
Relations Department.

There is another Bill that has sparked controversy and debate. Commonly
called the Recall Bill, this piece of legislation is being seen as an
instrument that dictators would love. It affords the leader of a list
of candidates to literally kick out of Parliament, those whose views do
not coincide with his.

Certainly this is abhorrent. In a democracy, particularly one in which
people are elected to the highest forum in the land to represent
people, the person elected is required to have the interest of the
people foremost. And in cases where these do not coincide with the
leader of the party then there could be a vote that differs from party
line.

With this new legislation, the leader of the party could petition the
Speaker of the House and have the person delivering a vote in the
interest of his constituency kicked out.

Surely this cannot be in the interest of the wider society and it is a
shame that party leaders must resort to this type of behaviour to force
robotic behaviour.

And people are not robots.