National e-ID card: No comfort from AG’s assurances

Whoever wishes to believe the Hon Attorney General of Guyana, Anil Nandlall, SC, MP, is free to take that risk, treat themselves to that luxury.  On occasion, I may be inclined to extend some limited trust to the AG, if the subject under discussion was sports or entertainment.  But on most things that have to do with governance, most likely all of them, I regret not being able to give the benefit to the AG.  I am sorry about this, but the PPP Government of which, the Hon AG is such a faithful servant, has not done what is creditable or reputable on the sensitive issues in Guyana.  This development involving the proposed new national ID card system stands as one.  It alarms.

This new identifier system covering huge chunks of life dropped suddenly from the sky on Guyanese.  Like the nation’s Oil Fund, it reeks of another sharp scheme thought of, pushed for, and closed out under the thick veil of darkness.  Political slurry in a hurry.  The AG is already at work beating the bushes with his assurance of private data being protected, that there is nothing to worry about.  Go sell to that some dumbo, bro.  For this is when Guyanese must get concerned, and at a deeper pitch, viz., when the Senior Counsel gets kind and concerned.  I am still to figure out what stunt the AG is trying to pull, but that assurance of his looks as shaky and trustworthy as the over-tilted stilts of a masquerade performer engaged in high wire acrobatics.  The same luminous AG also knows, notwithstanding his boilerplate assurance about privacy and such, that when those are breached and misused for political objectives (and they sure will be, which stake I am planting in the ground from now), he will be in front of the line coming up with one of his patented dance move justifications.  Like he has done with charges for colleagues, and other sensitive matters.

Further, the AG knows more than I can ever know that nothing is secure or secret in Guyana.  The same AG knows also knows all too well that his PPP Government is not comfortable with anything that they don’t know, and its agents make it their duty to probe for information that really doesn’t belong to the government.  Unlike former American Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, the PPP wants to know what it doesn’t know, shouldn’t know, and has no need to know.  A new ID card system with a world of personal details embedded is just too tempting, too much of an open and available field, not to use for political purposes.  A large cluster of new ID card details would be there for the taking and picking, and when I think along electoral lines, and the range of possible shenanigans, the bottom of AG Nandlall’s assurance about the protection of personal information just fell out.  Sticking with the electoral, there is nobody who knows the ongoing derangements as well (a word most familiar to him) surrounding ID cards and their use as a voting resource, tool, and weapon.  With the expected influx of foreigners, and work ID cards to be issued, the sky is the limit as to what luscious uses those cards could be put to, and with what contributions to the tranquility of Guyana’s social landscape.  I hear loud and clear the AG on fresh laws to govern Guyana’s new ID card system (Demerara Waves, March 14), but whether old or new, the existence of laws has not inhibited PPP operators from getting around them for the worst of objectives.

Moreover, though nobody has asked the question, or raised eyebrows of concern, I do so now.  Why did this engagement for a new Guyana ID card system with a German company have to go through the UAE?  To call things as they are, the UAE itself is not looked upon as a fortress that inspires great confidence for something of this sensitive and comprehensive nature.  Certainly notfor a place as plagued as Guyana with suspicions, insecurities, and a governance apparatus that knows not the word clean.  Therefore, for Guyana to engage a German company with operations like this there is not reassuring.  Come to think of it, only if such a company was based in Geneva would the shakes subside to some extent.  There is simply too much involved, too much of other dark ambitions that could be underfoot, and too many shady functionaries to make controversial things happen.

Thinking of all this, when I heard His Excellency, President Ali putting his stamp of approval on what is in motion, more misgivings surfaced.  Said the President, “We cannot build [Guyana] in a straight-line way… We are too far behind to believe that we can catch up on the straight line. We have to skip the hurdles, get to the best and then work backward in bringing our people to accept the best and that is what we are doing.”  Whenever the President comes out with his comic book imitations of his esteemed AG, I have learned to duck and run for I know a load is coming.  If a straight line, why overnight?  If we must catch up, then why a UAE-based German entity?  Get another country boss, besides the UAE (and another sucker for that line).  His Excellency did have that one right, though, about “we have to skip hurdles”.  It covers his stye of leadership and the nature of the PPP Government, with all that both have been doing, and which leave so much missing.  When leader and government skip hurdles, Guyanese get what hits the fan smack in their faces.  Just check with the AG who is usually left with the cleanup chores, with which he is his regular cavalier and sloppy self.  I am saying it from now: no new ID card for me, folks.  And I am not even voting.  This already started on the wrong foot, and smells.