Malpractices in high places
Stabroek News
May 4, 2007
Last week the Stabroek Business dealt extensively with the problems of the Guyana Power and Light Company (GPL) - the phenomenal sums owing to the company in unpaid electricity bills, the stealing of electricity, the abuse of privilege by persons in authority at the GPL including a former member and a serving member of the Board of Directors and corrupt acts by employees seeking to profit from the company's dilemma.
The GPL is not the only public institution confronting some or all of these difficulties. The Georgetown City Council too is owed millions of dollars in rates and taxes by a number of citizens including prominent businessmen and "citizens of distinction." Some of these amounts have been outstanding for several years and it is clear that those who owe have no intention of paying. In some instances the transgressors are among the very citizens who are critical of the performance of the municipality and who continually clamour for change in the administration at City Hall.
Then there is the National Insurance Scheme. (NIS) An estimated ten to fifteen percent of the country's private employers including a veritable who's who of businessmen and technical and professional persons are adrift in their payments both as self-employed persons and as employers. The list of delinquents again include prominent businessmen, Attorneys-at-law, engineers, hoteliers, and - believe it or not - members of parliament including cabinet ministers. The outstanding amount owing to the NIS is estimated in the region of $500m.
Nor is the GPL singular in its experience of board members. Some time ago the NIS was forced to move to the courts against an individual who, even while occupying a seat on the board, was seriously delinquent in the payment of contributions. That individual was subsequently removed from the NIS Board. And the records of City Hall will show that some of the municipality's own councillors are among the defaulting rate payers.
What is disturbing in each of the cases that we have cited is the fact that they, variously, bear the taint of abuse of privilege, corrupt practices and inexcusable betrayal of trust by persons placed in positions of responsibility. The cases of delinquency in the payment of NIS contributions by Members of Parliament - from all sides of the political divide - are even more disturbing when one considers that the very persons who make the law are themselves among the principal transgressors.
In the cases of both the GPL and the City Council these institutions continue to find it difficult to meet their own obligations, including the improvement of sub-standard services and, we understand, the timely payment of salaries to their employees. For its part, the NIS remains viable only because the majority of employers, particularly public sector agencies, continue to pay employee contributions in a timely manner and, in effect, subsidize the transgressors.
The other similarity, of course, is that the operations of each of these institutions have come to be associated with corrupt practices including, in the case of GPL, "under the table payments," scams involving city police and vendors and bogus NIS certificates of compliance. One might add, of course, that these are, in all likelihood, not the only public institutions in which these practices take place but then, of course, official exposure of corrupt practices is simply not a part of our national culture.
Take the case of the 2006 GPL electricity theft scam and the decision by the management not to name the offenders and the list of delinquent rate payers on which, even now, City Hall continues to sit in the hope, it seems, that after years of non-payment the transgressors will become afflicted by a change of heart. And while the NIS had commenced the publication of the names of its delinquents that list certainly did not contain the names of the "big wigs" who are in arrears and at any rate the practice of publishing the names appears to have ceased.
The mind boggles as to why more pressure is not put on these transgressors to meet their obligations and why, in the cases of the GPL and the NIS, the bold-faced acts of dishonesty and abuse of authority by their own board members are not brought out into the open. Why, for example, does it appear that no real pressure is brought to bear on ministers to meet their NIS obligations despite the fact that the chairman of the NIS board is a member of cabinet? And is it not possible for the wider issue of the delinquency of parliamentarians to be brought to the attention of the National Assembly so that the guilty parties can perhaps be shamed into paying up? And why does it appear that there is no end to the chicanery at the GPL that allows the company to be ruthlessly ripped off by those who can afford to pay? As for City Hall, why does it appear that after years of underperformance due, in part, to financial limitations, the municipality still continues to play what appears to be a game of "wait and see' with the delinquents?
The GPL, City Hall and the NIS are, of course, three of the more important institutions in the administration of the city and in the cases of the GPL and the NIS, the country as a whole. They each provide critical services to the capital, the national work force and the country as a whole and their respective deficiencies continue to impact on the general quality of life in various important areas of society. We should spare a thought, for example, for the thousands of disgruntled workers for whom NIS benefits are the only means of meeting medical expenses; for an economy that continues to be burdened by high electricity costs arising out of operational deficiencies associated with inadequate financing and for a capital that we are unable to maintain to an acceptable standard on account of similar financial difficulties faced by the City Council. It is time that we read a "riot act" against practices that inhibit the effective functioning of these critical institutions including holding those who are responsible for the situation to account.