NICIL

Last Saturday we (Guyana Times daily) presented the historical background to the operations of NICIL. This week, against that background, we examine some of the claims the AFC has been making. After reviewing the entire contretemps, we have concluded that the AFC has taken on NICIL as an institution to actually attack the government because the mode of operation of the former is not familiar to the average voter. NICIL is the occasion for the war; not the cause of the war.

As such, the opposition’s strategy has been to make wild and unsubstantiated claims about vast sums of moneys being misappropriated to capture the attention of the public and when confronted with facts to the contrary, blithely proceed to launch further sensationalistic accusations. Meanwhile it refuses to concede that it has been mistaken at best, and conniving or duplicitous at worse. This smoke and mirror subterfuge makes for a type of gutter politics that is certain to pollute the economic and political atmosphere for years to come.

First, there was the claim that NICIL was not supposed to retain funds from its operations but to pass on these directly into the Consolidated Fund. As late as May 13, Khemraj Ramjattan asserted: “The starting point is Article 216 of the Constitution which states that all monies raised or received by Guyana are to be paid into the Consolidated Fund.” This was long after it has been shown that Article 216 had exceptions to the rule among which was that it did not apply to “revenues or monies that are payable, by or under an Act of Parliament, into some other fund established for any specific purpose”. NICIL had been formed under such an Act way back in 1990 by the PNC.

However, the AFC did not just make an academic claim but asserted that NICIL actually had Gy$ 50 billion in its kitty. This astounding assertion was clearly crafted to catch the attention of the electorate that was not amused by the opposition axing Gy$ 20 billion from the budget. The AFC’s subtext, not even disguised, was that the government was hiding moneys that it could use to continue to support its programmes. After the CEO of NICIL revealed that NICIL merely had less than one billion (actually Gy$ 700 million) in its coffers, Ramjattan airily allowed that the AFC was not prepared to “argue the semantics” of whether there is Gy$ 50 billion, or more, or less in the NICIL account. “An audit will prove how much should have been in the account,” Ramjattan declared.

But if Ramjattan as an experienced lawyer understood the utility of audits, why did he make such an outlandish claim? His answer does not make any sense. He claimed, factually that in 2003 NICIL had Gy$ 33 billion in revenues and extrapolated from transactions conducted subsequently it “must” have Gy$ 50 billion now. Surely Mr Ramjattan is aware of the distinction between revenues and profits: they are certainly not equivalent. There is absolutely no evidence that Mr Ramjattan conducted any research on the legal regime under which NICIL operates.

Mr Ramjattan also makes much ado about the Minister of Finance being responsible for Public Corporations and being chairman of NICIL. He pontificates: “I believe he is in a conflict of interest position because he cannot have ministerial supervision over a company for which he also holds the senior executive post of chairman of the board. This is ridiculous and makes a mockery of the statutory provisions which do not contemplate this alarming situation.”

We suggest he review our editorial in relation to the history of NICIL and ask his senior colleague Mr Carl Greenidge – Minister of Finance and Chairman of Guystac when all of this was established – who was chairman of NICIL and who reported to whom. Precedent?