Category: Public sector

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The Budget cuts case

Introduction
The abrupt resignation earlier this month of Court of Appeal Justice Rabi Sukul which I addressed last week on this Blog continues to reverberate in the community, along with two other issues with implications for the judiciary. The first involved unusually swift justice dispensed in the case of baby-sitter who admitted to slapping her one year old charge, the daughter of a magistrate mother and a lawyer father. Without even asking for a Probation Officer’s report, the magistrate sentenced the legally unrepresented teenager to five years in prison. One section of the press had earlier reported the sentence as sixty months but that appears not to be correct.

The second issue raises the question whether a lawyer admitted to practise in the Courts of Guyana who is subsequently convicted in another jurisdiction should be allowed to return to practise in the Guyana Courts. Both in this and the Justice Sukul’s matter the (alleged) misconduct took place outside of Guyana.

There is a striking contrast between the considerable media attention and feedback to these issues and the silence of the major stakeholders over the challenges facing the judiciary. Even if this matter had involved a puisne judge it would have been serious enough to warrant attention. In this case a Court of Appeal Judge and the constitutional body the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) are involved but yet there is virtual silence from the head of the Bar, Minister of Legal Affairs and Legal Adviser to the Government.
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Forestry Commission’s Reports – An affront to decency

Introduction
Section 25 of the Guyana Forestry Commission Act 2007 requires the Commission to submit, no later than six months after the end of the year, a report to the subject Minister (currently of Natural Resources and the Environment) containing an account of its activities in such details as the Minister directs together with a copy of its audited accounts for the year. The Minister is then required to lay these in the National Assembly as soon as possible but not later than eight months after the end of the financial year.

The pre-2007 law did not impose any time within which these two reports were to be tabled in the National Assembly. But surely no matter how grievous the failure to prescribe a date is, it could hardly have been expected that the annual report for 2005 would be tabled until eight years later. But that is just what happened when on November 7, 2013 Mr. Robert Persaud tabled the report and some accounts of the GFC for the eight years 2005-2012 inclusively.

But the late tabling is hardly the only problem in relation to the reports for 2005-2012 to which I will return shortly. The other is that no one seems concerned that there appears to be a black hole when it comes to reports prior to 2005. The official records of documents laid in the National Assembly for the eighteen years from 1996 to 2013 reveal that the first year for which any report or audited financial statements were laid in the National Assembly was in 2013!

What exactly have successive Ministers of Agriculture, including Mr. Robert Persaud, been doing that prevented them from tabling any reports for perhaps as long as two decades? The same question must be asked of the Public Accounts Committee which is responsible for the oversight of not only the government accounts but also “such other accounts laid before the Assembly as the Assembly may refer …”; and of the National Assembly and the shadow minister; and of the Parliamentary Sectoral Committee on Natural Resources chaired by the shadow minister; and of the clearly compromised Audit Office.
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The MURI Deal and the national interest

Introduction
The permission dated November 7, 2012 granted by Mr. Robert Persaud, Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment to MURI Brazil Ventures Inc. (MURI) to undertake surveys over 2,200,000 acres of land on the Guyana/Brazil border has attracted some revealing responses. Among the contributors were current and former Army personnel; politicians Dr. Roger Luncheon and Mr. Joseph Harmon; private sector official Mr. Clinton Urling and columnist Ralph Ramkarran; and persons connected with the mining sector Mr. Anthony Shields and the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association. MURI, through its PR agency, itself issued a statement early in the week.

Many of the contributors, using information which seem to have their origin in official sources, went out of their way to defend the Minister, avoiding any reference to the Minister’s clearly misleading statement to a parliamentary select committee that the “position of the government at this point in time is not to permit mining in that specific area…” more than a year after he had guaranteed to MURI eighteen licences in the area. With such gratuitous support and defence of his exposed flank, the Minister followed the road of discretion and has so far said nothing further on the matter.

On the other side, the leader of the AFC Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan and the APNU shadow minister Joseph Harmon were adamant and categorical that the Permission was tainted and that the Minister had deceived the parliamentary Select Committee and ought to be rescinded.

This contribution will do a brief review of some of those contributions before going on to explain why I believe that the permission ought not to have been granted in the first place and make my own conclusions.
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The leadership of the GDF has a constitutional duty to raise the Muri permission formally with President Ramotar

The statement attributed to the Chief-of-Staff of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Brigadier Mark Phillips in relation to survey rights to 2,200,000 acres granted to a company with powerful Brazilian ties raises a number of issues. The Chief-of-Staff is reported to have said: “The army will remain committed and adherent to the policies of the government. ‘The government has a responsibility for governing the country and determining what is best, so the GDF will respect any decisions made for the country.’”

While democracies accept the importance of having the military answerable to the civilian administration, a constitutional amendment in 2001 defined the country’s defence and security policy, the role of the Defence and Security Forces in relation to that policy, and the allegiance of the members of those forces. These are set out, perhaps not by accident, in Article 197 A of the constitution, the same article that deals with the judicature.
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Foreign-funded Guyana company granted right to Eighteen Prospecting Licences – in 2,200,000 acres of pristine territory

Introduction
Whatever the Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment Mr. Robert Persaud MBA may or may not have said to the Natural Resources Committee of Parliament, one fact is clear: MURI BRASIL VENTURES INC. has been granted “the right to apply to the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission for, and shall be granted (emphasis added) a maximum of eighteen Prospecting Licences for Rare Earth Elements, Bauxite, Limestone, Nephelene Syenite, Gold, Diamonds and Granite Stones.”

This is the unambiguous language of Clause 3 of the recently disclosed Permission dated November 7, 2012 granted by Mr. Persaud to the Company under the Mining Act of Guyana. The only proviso to the clause is that the grant is subject to compliance with the Work Programme and satisfactory proof of financial resources and technical capability for each of the potential eighteen Prospecting Licences which the Government is compelled to issue.

There are several and dangerous implications arising from the actions of Minister Persaud, whatever he and his Stakeholder Support Officer namesake may try to spin. Much has been made about whether or not Mr. Persaud lied, or as his counterpart in the National Assembly Mr. Joseph Harmon euphemistically put it, was economical with the truth. Of course, lying by politicians and, particularly this current crop, is not a barrier to upward mobility, often goes hand-in-hand with the accumulation of private wealth, and proudly worn as a badge of honour among peers rather than condemned by the citizenry.

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