…of the corruption
Imagine Hamilton Green complaining about “corruption” in the “bureaucracy”!!! It’s like Hitler complaining about the lower number of Jews in Germany!! Reminding us that he’d been around since the 1950s, he complained: “…our society, as from the closing years of the 20th century, has become so corrupted that in many areas, things don’t happen unless some bureaucrat receives a ‘small piece’”.
Now while Guyanese would fervently agree with Green, there are two significant gaps in his assessment: his refusal to not mention the “big ones” in Government and the origin of the corruption to begin with. On the first, he ignores the old Guyanese folk wisdom: “the fish starts to stink from the head” and on the second, he studiously locates the start of the corruption “from the closing years of the 20th century”, rather than from the moment the PNC slid into power in 1964 on its corrupt Faustian bargain with international forces that wanted the PPP out!
The British had used the bureaucracy to rule over the colony and had insisted on incorruptibility and efficiency into its membership. It would’ve been unheard of for a colonial bureaucrat to risk his civil servant status by accepting a “small piece”!! Burnham changed all of that, not because he wanted bureaucrats to be corrupt and inefficient, but because these were the inevitable outcome of the changes he initiated as he established his dictatorship!! They were unintended consequences but no less potent.
He achieved control of the bureaucracy through a process of “politicisation and de-bureaucratisation”: Weberian criteria of bureaucratic development such as objectivity, precision and continuity, discretion and qualification for office were abandoned. Through the doctrine of “party paramountcy”, the Orwellian titled “Office of the General Secretary of the PNC and the Ministry of the National Development” (OGSPNCMND) oversaw the ideological “purity” of bureaucratic training and performance. It was “jobs for the boys”! Political loyalty became the sole criterion for measuring competence, suitability for hiring or for making recommendations.
A “party bureaucracy” was developed parallel but superior to the state bureaucracy at every level and they assumed many state functions, especially in reference to hiring and firing. State employees were monitored for adherence to Burnham’s line; dismissals accompanied transgressions. Multiple hierarchies of bureaucracies were created, which were granted overlapping jurisdictions— creating bureaucratic infighting.
By the time the economy collapsed, the demoralised bureaucrats could only survive on their “small piece” extorted from the hapless populace. Corruption had become power and absolute corruption was absolute power at all levels of Government!!
And this has never been rooted out: the PPP feared riots and reprisals and Granger’s return brought back the Burnhamite subversion of the bureaucracy.
Remember the Volda Principle??
…of AFC as PNC’s doormat
Once again, the AFC’s threatening to go “solo” at the polls if their demands on the PM candidate and number of Ministries aren’t met by the PNC by Monday. The last time they made similar threats for the Local Government Elections, the PNC called their bluff and they were left in their nakedness for all and sundry to see!! It wasn’t a pretty sight…not being able to win a single constituency and even losing in Ramjattan and Nagamootoo’s own home villages!!
So, dear readers, pay no heed to the AFC’s fulminations, they’re holding the weakest hand possible. All their cards are Jokers!! How can the PNC take Ramjattan seriously when, since 2015, he’d been bending over forwards just to please them?? It was the AFC’s plan to close sugar?? It was Ramjattan who’d proposed the unilateral appointment of Patterson?? What else can the PNC think of them but “worms” when they show no backbones and brownnose so vigorously?
The PNC knows that the AFC has nowhere to go. Hence their hubris!!
…of Bolivia’s crisis
It doesn’t matter what you call the ouster of Evo Morales in Bolivia; he overreached when he didn’t follow the Constitution and even his supporters came out against him.
They insisted on a return to constitutional rule. Will PNC supporters do less here?