Access to info: the trials, resistance, unsoundness of it all

Big men out on the streets with revealing and damning placards in the midday sun in the middle of Guyana’s capital city.  Young women joining them to express their frustration and disgust.  Some trade unionists came out.  Civil society folks, too, as well as a parliamentarian or two.  Even the Guyana Police Force was well-represented.  Too well, I thought; and too diligent with phone shots of placards.  Subversive intent was unlikely; the placard holders, not the police.  One figure peering from behind a tilted upper floor window in a private residence.  Like the man that found refuge behind a small wall of glass, I did the same.  Keeping my distance, through seeking sanctuary behind a tree with a comforting canopy of well-leafed branches.  This cannot be about citizens fighting to get access to information.  It was.  Government info not forthcoming from a government office run by a government (taxpayer funded) commissioner.  Surely, access to information in Guyana shouldn’t have come to this dark and disturbing place.

The media came out in its numbers, with a continuing stream of rubberneckers.  Curiosity may have killed the cat, a dubious proposition given it has nine lives.  But curiosity (it’s more in the nature of serious interest from sober people) for information on how the PPP Government conducts the business of the Guyanese people is not a crime, or a pastime.  Access to information has the cover of law.  One that is 14 years and 187 days old since then Pres. Jagdeo assented to it.  Some files had to be compiled and stored; retained to this day.  So, what’s the problem?  Why is the officer in charge of responding to such requests for information proving to be such a stumbling block?  Is it the man holding the sensitive position of commissioner?  Or is it the whole gang of people put in place by the PPP, whose orders are short and sweet?  Say nothing.  Give nothing.  Do nothing.  When I say PPP, I mean Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, who himself could be more unintelligible than a dog with a fistful of flesh filling up its mouth.

Information is the lifeblood of any society calling itself a democracy.  Don’t take my word for it, ask the Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, a man of honor.  I mean that in the real sense, and not in the manner used by La Cosa Nostra.  No information, no light.  No light erects a blackout over the healthy discussions that make for a viable democracy.  I speak not of the farcical transparency of which Excellency Ali is the reigning monarch.  This is about a few sheets of paper so that the reading and comprehension skills of people like Chris Ram, Anand Persaud, Glenn Lall and others could be enhanced, which are then passed on to the rest in Guyana’s population.  It should be noted that I left myself out of that illustrious lineup.  There are some other fish to fry.  If Guyanese are thwarted repeatedly from accessing need-to-know information, then why have the access to information law?  Also, why is there the need for that Office of the Commissioner of Information?  I am absolutely positive that I could do a much better job dispensing information without a phone, without a computer, without a printer, and without an office.

If the failure to allow Guyanese access to information has to do with ink or typewriter ribbons or paper, I would be happy to supply the necessary.  If it is a matter of rolling blackouts impairing the release of information, then I am certain that I can locate a spare generator or two lying around in the yard.  Things can’t be that bad, since this is an oil producing country making daily headlines around the world.  I would be shocked if North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun doesn’t have a story or two about developments in Guyana.  Jagdeo has some pull with the top people in Pyongyang to guarantee that happening.  Just like he has the requisite level of juice here to ensure that some things don’t ever seep into the public domain.  I leave it to the detective capabilities of Guyanese to hunt down if access to information is included among those things under lockdown.

Why do I have to write about access to information when there are elections in the cards?  Why do Guyanese have to read this when they should be counting their oil money?  Hey, Mr. AG, is this beloved Guyana of ours still a democracy?  If it is, what’s up with this Iron Curtain?  Why is it even necessary, if there is nothing to hide?  When there is nothing to hide, there is nothing and no one to fear.  Forget about travesty and tragedy with this rigmarole over access to information.  Like management of the NRF, like the Procurement bodies (NPTAB and PPC), like the GPF, the Office of the Commissioner of Information is a hoax, a setup, a wild goose chase, and part of the sweeping sickness that is killing this country deader that COVID and HIV/AIDS (and way too much rum drinking) combined ever could.