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Human Rights Assoc recommends sweeping changes to State Asset Recovery mechanism or it “risks prolonging ethnically polarized politics”

Co Chairman of the Guyana Human Rights Association,
Mike Mc Cormack speaking at the recently held
public consultation on the State Asset Recovery Bill.

The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) is calling for a range of measures to be implemented to ensure that the proposed State Asset Recovery legislation and the agency win broad-based political support.

The association cautioned the APNU+AFC government against using its one-seat majority in the House to pass the State Asset Recovery Bill and establish the State Asset Recovery Agency (SARA), arguing that do so without a serious effort to obtain genuine broad-based political support “risks prolonging ethnically polarized politics.”

Already, the East Indian-dominated People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) has been persistently accusing the Afro-dominated A Partnership for National Unity+ Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) coalition government of using the Recovery Unit (SARU), SARA’s precursor, and the Guyana Police Force’s Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) to witch-hunt political opponents.

In an effort to avoid such a pitfall, the GHRA recommended that the SAR Bill be broadened from asset recovery alone to a more substantive incorporation of the aims of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC). The Association also urged government to create a mechanism that brings a range of civic and private sector forces into the process of promoting the Bill. “Anything less will inevitably prompt the question whether ‘anti-corruption’ for the ruling party ever meant more than pursuing those now in opposition for corrupt acts committed while in power,” said the GHRA which has a history of being harshly critical of all governments in post-independence Guyana.

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