No Cabinet Press Briefing 

The eight-month old Irfaan Ali government has held no post Cabinet press briefing.

The new development is not good for Guyana because it deprives Guyanese of knowing what transpired at the weekly Cabinet meeting.

It has become part of Guyana’s government practice to hold briefings after deliberations and decisions are made at Cabinet. These press briefings also allow for the media to ask questions and for the government to answer or clarify concerns.  The briefing also serves as a check and balance on government. There are too many things happening in society and people remain in the dark or are left to assume.

People are hearing about the government doing a construction here, a building going up there, a new road or new bridge to be built somewhere, but the media is being denied the opportunity to ask questions on these. Society wants to know what has informed the decisions for these projects. People want to know whether the government is taking any loan for any of the projects, who is/are funding the loan, the duration and interest rate.

The President heads the Cabinet and has a responsibility to society to brief the nation after or delegate someone to. What could be inferred from the absence of these briefings is that the government has something to hide and does not want to account to the public. This may not be the case but the lack of transparency is not healthy for governing and society. Where society knows nothing, it creates opportunities for speculation and mistrust. Society cannot continue to live in darkness. Lest it be forgotten, democracy dies in darkness.

Earlier in the year the government announced it had raised the debt ceiling. The external debt is now set at $650 billion and the internal at $500 billion. Minister of Finance, Ashni Singh, in seeking to justify the additional financial burden on the already overburdened taxpayers, said the raised ceiling was necessary to widen the fiscal space and regularise spending of the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change government. Former Finance Minister, Winston Jordan, of the APNU+AFC differed on the need to raise the ceiling. He said the new ceiling had anything to do with an alleged remedying of the debt accumulated by a large overdraft on the Consolidated Fund from the Bank of Guyana.

Mr. Jordan argued, “The deficit for 2020 under PPP was projected at $75B before they went to the Parliament on December 28, last, to extract another $17B.” He went further to say, “So if you assume that they collected all the revenues, which they claim they collected in 2020 and they spent all the money they claimed they did, then in one year, their deficit in 2020 is equivalent to the accumulated deficit of the APNU+ADFC regime in five years…” Mr. Singh did not rebuff this evidence.

Some may argue that there is no law mandating post Cabinet press briefing. But these briefings have become custom and practice, and the Executive has a responsibility to share the deliberations and decisions arising out of these meetings in order that the society can be involved. One area of key importance is the raising of the debt ceiling and how Guyana will be able to service additional debts. Starting this week the Government must start hosting a post Cabinet press briefing. Releases churned out from the Department of Public Information will not do because they are not press briefings.