Where's the transparency?

Where's the transparency?
Editorial. Kaieteur News, 6 August 2007

Two weeks ago Parliament passed a forestry sector Bill that indicates
that the government is becoming increasingly less transparent. This
Bill, the Guyana Forestry Commission Bill, seeks to re-establish a
Guyana Forestry Commission that will keep proper financial accounts.

This Commission is accountable to the Minister, in this case, the
Minister of Agriculture. But there are the restrictions. It must submit
all audited accounts to the Minister, who is a member of the political
directorate.

The most worrying aspect of this Bill is the confidentiality clause. In
the first instance, every Commission member is subjected to strict
confidentiality requirements.

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

Therein lies the problem. There have been many issues in the forestry
sector that from time to time have been exposed by people who appear to
have the interest of this country's natural resources at heart.

For example, there has been a timber agreement, the details of which
are still unknown to the public. We do not know how much timber these
people are going to exploit, the conditions under which they may
exploit the timber resources, and even how much money Guyana is getting
out of this.

A few short months ago, someone blew the whistle on Barama Company
Limited, detailing what this individual saw as unethical practices. Had
it not been for some of the private disclosures, the people of this
country would have been in the dark. We are aware that the government
has been silent while all the accusations and counter-accusations have
been flying around.

Perhaps, it is because the government recognises the revenue that comes
from this company and therefore has adopted the position of silence for
fear of antagonizing the company and, in the process, losing some of
the perks that accrue.

But there has been so much more wrong in the timber sector. We could
not help but note that a foreign entity had to get involved and impose
sanctions against some of the timber operations in Guyana . Some time
later, the government imposed a ban on a foreign company. However, the
reason for these actions has never been forthcoming.

So, we now have this Bill that makes it an offence for anyone on the
Commission coming into contact with information about wrongdoings in
the sector to divulge that information to anyone but the Minister. The
Minister may then shut down the information, leaving the public none
the wiser about the situation.

There was a time when the government spoke so glibly about
transparency. We would have expected that by now the public, who are
touted as the partners in development, would have been allowed to learn
of all that is happening in the society, especially those things that
could impact negatively on their future.

We do not have a Freedom of Information Act so the media, at least,
have no way of accessing or demanding information on critical aspects.
Simply put, as things stand, if the government refuses to disclose
information then there is nothing anyone can do to get that
information.

And everyone knows that in the absence of information there is
speculation. No organisation more than ours has been at the centre of
criticisms for reporting on issues using information from sources other
than official sources.

There have been occasions when we reported on issues that the
government denied, only to come back later to confirm the same
information. We are sure that more of this would happen because we are
sure that there is a lot wrong in the forestry sector.

We are going to forget that the government ever promised to be
transparent because that is certainly not the case, especially more so
with the passage of the Guyana Forestry Commission Bill.

The government is still to tell us how much money it collected and how
much it spent on the floods of 2005. It is still to tell us how much
Cricket World Cup cost Guyana even as the other countries have informed
their population about the expenditure. But on this issue, the
government was critical of reports on the very expenditure.
We know that Guyana rates lowly on the transparency scale on the
international scene but we would have thought that steps would have
been taken to change this view. This is certainly not the case; not
with the passage of the Forestry Commission Bill.