Why not publish grant details?
AS WE all know, one of the reactions to the pandemic by the States was to stop most trade, resulting in a loss of income for most of the working population and businesses within the local community, by imposing two separate lockdowns each containing different phases. Reasonably enough, they set up a support scheme, allocating taxpayers’ money to those who made a good case for receiving it.
But it is hypocritical for the States to insist that we trust them with all matters Covid, while refusing to publish details of the recipients and amounts of the grants, especially as the recipients have given them permission to do so (such permission I understand was one of the criteria which needed to be met for the application to be successful). The UK government tried to pull a similar non-disclosure stunt but were successfully prosecuted under the UK’s transparency legislation by the Good Law Project and others, as a result of which all sorts of goodies are now emerging. For example, the 36-year-old former landlord of Matt Hancock’s local pub, also his neighbour, despite having no experience in the medical profession, won £30m. in government contracts to supply vials for coronavirus tests. If Guernsey has no such transparency laws then we shouldn’t expect the international watchdogs to be terribly impressed.
Non-disclosure of the particulars of government support is inevitably going to lead to suspicion of cronyism which in turn leads to public mistrust in government, which is precisely the opposite of what the latter is asking for. So I don’t think that the government is practising what it is preaching. The non-disclosure also means that those who have conscientiously and nobly soldiered on without seeking grants can be suspected of having been awarded them.
It is not surprising then that the Guernsey Policy and Economics Group has recently condemned the way in which the States accounts are presented. Logically they are set to condemn the aforementioned non- disclosure.
Moving on to another subject which you have raised recently, that of the ‘female candidates’ row erupting again. If we are to be doing our best to include everybody, then all candidates should be equally (un)supported. I doubt, if the States support for female candidates were successful, that it would end there. We would most likely have all manner of other groups piling in claiming ‘look how under-represented we are in the Assembly’. These arguments are blinkered. We are either a democracy or we are not. If we are not then it doesn’t matter a jot who the candidates are. And if we are, then the electorate directs the States, and the electorate will not change.
The dynamics and demographics of the factions within it will be the same whether the politicians who, in a democracy are there to carry out the wishes of the electorate, are mostly female, male, black, white, gay, straight, religious, agnostic or whatever.
MATT WATERMAN