The PNM government has a lot to answer for. Some, including most notably the insider and former Cabinet Minister Dr Keith Rowley, have argued that the PNM government is far more corrupt than Mr Panday’s UNC.Certainly, the information emerging from, first the Uff Commission of Inquiry and now about the operations of the Ministry of Culture, Community Development and Gender Affairs paints a picture of at best the total absence of transparency and at worst serious corruption.
Here we have a Government Ministry awarding monies to persons to pursue their education, but this Ministry is not involved in education at all.
The Government has established a very comprehensive – and costly - system of supporting tertiary education through its GATE programme. In addition there are student loans and other means of assistance.
All of these are advertised and every citizen has access, once qualified. The situation with these Ministry of Culture funds is, however, very different.
The availability of these awards was not, as far as I know, general knowledge to citizens. This meant that only some persons who had an “inside line” actually applied and then received funding for their studies.
It is also very clear that some persons who either are PNM members or who have close ties to people in the ruling PNM were able to access funding. To add to the opaqueness of this multi million-dollar funding, was the Government’s refusal to disclose information about the recipients and the amount each received.
Thus, a question asked of the Minister in Parliament was not answered on the ground that it would violate the right to privacy of the recipients. Information sought under the Freedom of Information Act (FIA) was also not provided.
The Government seemed not to realise that the monies which these persons received came from taxpayers and therefore the public has a right to know how their money is being spent.
It was only following legal action that the Government was forced to release the information. This is unacceptable.
But we are now able to understand why the reluctance. In addition to the lack of transparency and the apparent bias in that some awardees are close to the PNM, we now have public statements by some persons who were listed by the Ministry as being beneficiaries of the funding, that neither they personally nor the educational institution at which they were studying got a cent.
If this is in fact the truth, then something is terribly amiss. It would seem that the Ministry of Culture, Community Development and Gender Affairs was being used to fund many activities of questionable value and of even less transparency.
This Ministry was one vehicle for political patronage on a large scale. Recently there was another release of information following a request under the FIA. This pertained to money given by the Ministry to groups for cultural/social events such as emancipation.
In the published information it was revealed that a very large sum was given to the “South Emancipation” group in 2007. However, that organisation publicly stated that they received not a cent from the Ministry! What can explain this discrepancy? And the discrepancy in information about who actually benefitted from the education grants?
This situation clearly needs to be urgently investigated and warrants a forensic audit.
If Mr Manning could suggest in the Parliament that $10 million was unaccounted for in the Cleaver Heights housing project and, on this basis the forensic investigator Bob Linquist was hired to do an audit, then certainly there are sufficient questions arising in the Ministry of Culture for the same approach to be adopted.
This entire issue also reinforces the need for reform of the political system so that accountability and transparency are built in and not dependent on who happens to hold high office.
Civil society has been demanding such reform, whether it is the fundamental reform of the Constitution or the introduction of legislation to give effect to the White Paper on procurement.
Organisations making such demands are quite diverse – from FITUN to the Constitution Reform Forum to the Trinidad and Tobago Transparency Institute to YesTT to the Joint Consultative Council of the Construction sector. This demand has most recently been taken up by the umbrella group – The People’s Democracy.
Until we get fundamental change in our system (and this, in my own view will not happen under the PNM’s watch), there will be continued weeping, wailing and knashing of teeth about lack of transparency, inequity and discrimination.
David Abdullah | President, FITUN - via email
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