Kaieteur News
GEORGETOWN
EnergiesNet.com 09 01 2022
A report for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) last year had urged Guyana to earnestly address its consensus and inclusion issues as the country is set to receive increased funds from the development of the oil and gas sector.
It warned that Guyana was about to increase in cash, but lacked not only the expertise to utilise same, but also the cohesiveness that would allow for better management of the money and its distribution for the development of all involved.
“Prepare for a massive influx of government revenue with little expertise on how to handle it,” the document had stated. The Democracy and Governance Assessment report said that Guyana will face an array of governance and institutional challenges as it tries to manage expected increases in annual revenues. However, “limited and ineffectual government accountability mechanisms can undermine citizen’s confidence in public institutions and further erode consensus in a vision for the country’s future.” Improving the effectiveness of the country’s public integrity institutions is therefore critical to inclusive, sustainable development.
The USAID had requested a democracy, human rights, and governance (DRG) assessment for Guyana to provide the Eastern and Southern Caribbean (ESC) Mission with analysis and recommendations. It said that the DRG Assessment is based on USAID’s DRG Strategic Assessment Framework and identifies key DRG opportunities and challenges in Guyana. The report also provided a political economy analysis of reform supporters and opponents (both actors and institutions) within the DRG sector, and offered strategic recommendations that account for mission priorities, available resources, and the initiatives of other donors and stakeholders.
On the matter of consensus, the document said that national consensus on critical development and economic issues seem elusive due to the prolonged political instability that has widened the political and racial divide within Guyana. It said that despite both political parties having a shared commitment to a democratic system, “there is no clear consensus for necessary electoral and institutional reforms and stewardship of Guyana’s national wealth.’ It is therefore incumbent on political leaders and citizens to reach across the racial and ethnic divide to come to a common vision of a new national development plan since ‘the lack of political agreement regarding policy priorities for economic opportunities and social benefits perpetuates long standing disparities in the country.”
The USAID report pointed out further that access to social and economic resources has varied depending on which political party is dominant in the political cycle. The parties derive their support from distinct ethnic blocks of voters which often pits Indo-Guyanese against Afro-Guyanese. “This political favouritism towards one ethnic group is especially worrisome as Guyana is on the cusp of unprecedented economic transformation. Vulnerable populations, rural and hinterland residents, along with the LGBTQI population have been excluded from meaningful engagement in political life and policymaking.”
It said that it is critical that Guyanese achieve consensus on the conceptual, structural, management and oversight functions of the state to ensure equitable distribution of the dividends of the expected economic boom and to mitigate the risk of corruption. “The government must develop an open and transparent process to plan and operationalise the fiscal and legislative framework of the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF), by consensus, to subvert corruption and theft of the expected funds and ensure equitable distribution of the expected revenue.”
The report pointed out however that the deep distrust of the party in government by the opposition has not changed as stakeholders interviewed for this assessment, across social groups, continuously referred to the ethnic political divisions as the major threat to political consensus. The inability to achieve consensus is often seen as originating from post-colonial ethnic divisions and the politics of grievance, the document related.
As such, it said, institutionalized concentration of power among ethnically identified elites who control political parties, and through them government institutions, prevents government from serving the interests of all citizens, while dominating political and economic development. “The lack of political competition and accountability leads to ethnic tensions and systematic exclusion across all levels of government and the private sector when Guyana is about to experience transformational economic growth from newly discovered oil and gas resources.”
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