International measures of economic growth – usually expressed as Gross Domestic Product – add the tremendous growth in the enclave economy of ExxonMobil and co-venturers to the small locally-controlled business achievements. The official GDP figures contrast with the 48 per cent of the population living below the World Bank’s estimate of the poverty line. The increasing GDP numbers also contrast with the excellent but saddening series of in-the-street interviews ‘How the cost of living is affecting people’ by SN journalist Subhana Shiwmangal (35 parts to date; https://www. stabroeknews.com/2023/08/07/news/guyana/how-the-cost-of-living-is-affecting-people-part-35/).
Recent activities/events in the National Assembly add to citizens’ concern about the deliberate rush by the ruling People’s Progressive Party government into massive public debt which can be serviced only by increasing reliance on oil money, for at least a human generation of time. The current practices of our parliament are profoundly anti-democratic. Without doubt it is desirable that Guyana brings its often poorly-drafted legislation into conformance with international standards. Without quibble it is desirable that Guyana’s financial and governance systems adopt such standards against white-collar crime: smuggling of arms and gold, trafficking in cocaine and people, transfer pricing of our natural resources, under-payment of taxes, gross mis-management and operation of government procurement systems, corruption as a norm at many levels and in many sectors.
The enormous profits from criminality attract good brains. So modern legislation is complex. Parliamentary democracies depend on an array of supporting services, such the United States’ Congressional Budget Office and the UK’s parliamentary research staff, to draft options. The democracies then refer the drafts to non-partisan sectoral and select committees for the complex process of merging what is technically desirable with what is politically feasible. Public hearings for presentations of arguments by ordinary citizens as well as paid lobbyists are normal, multiple revisions are conventional. Then the near-consensus drafts are brought to the floor of parliament for final debate. By no means is this a perfect process, as the continual need for law revision clearly demonstrates.
But in Guyana we are grappling with modernisation of legislation by the crudest of processes. The legal drafting is behind closed doors, select and sectoral committees scarcely function, lack of quorum on the feeblest excuses is frequent, there is no non-partisan research support, no budget office to compare costs of different options. As exemplified in the recent passage of the Petroleum Activities Bill through the National Assembly, the incumbent government has discarded the provisions that were being developed under the Coalition government for technical advice by an apolitical Petroleum Commission prior to political decision-making, in favour of an autocratic regime giving all-important powers to the politician with greatest power over the petroleum sector, without any need to consult with or take expert advice.
While the PPP in opposition (2017-2020) was in favour of a Petroleum Commission giving technical advice to a decision-making Minister, now the Minister huddles only with fellow Cabinet members. The Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, argued that it is the prerogative of the Executive to repose powers in an elected official instead of a non-elected official. As reported by KN (‘House approves new oil law arming minister with super powers over multi-billion dollar industry’), Minister Nandlall said that “This Executive has chosen the model where the powers fall with the minister and we stand and fall by that. We included in the Bill that for exceptional decisions he (the minister) has to consult with Cabinet and Cabinet is collectively accountable to parliament and that is what makes us a democracy. We are holding ourselves out as being accountable because you cannot hold non-elected people (appointed to a Petroleum Commission) accountable.”
Minister Nandlall apparently did not hear the APNU and AFC members of the National Assembly arguing for the responsible Minister to be advised by the technical Petroleum Commission. Instead the Petroleum Activities Act now gives autocratic authority to a probably non-technical Minister over multi-billion dollar decisions. How can this possibly be a representation of the will of the people?
I applaud the dedication of the APNU and AFC parliamentarians who made reasoned arguments for improving draft legislation, only to have their proposals rejected without even a civil debate on the merits. Guyana is looking more and more like the totalitarian State of Oceania in George Orwell’s novel ‘1984’.
Janette Bulkan
Article Originally Published At: https://www.stabroeknews.com/2023/08/13/opinion/letters/we-are-grappling-with-modernisation-of-legislation-by-the-crudest-of-processes/
