We’ve been fed that bone, time and time again

Feb 23, 2020 News

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The news that is supposed to be good and inspiring is that two hotels, including the famed Hilton chain, are coming to Guyana. We are supposed to be overjoyed, because we are so often fed that bone to appease us: jobs. We are so hard-up, that jobs alone are sufficient to soften us into putty and sawdust.
We at this paper ask: why does this nauseating story have to be repeated with every buccaneering corporate presence that arrives on these shores?
This was what the previous government told believing citizens about the Marriott when, all along, the Chinese came with their own workforce – down to the bottom feeder jobs that are normally doled out to Guyanese to keep them quiet and in line.
We now take this farther, and across the board of the decades of PPP rule and the recent years of this current government – and it seems that when push comes to shove, nobody is making any money here, and when the merest pressure is applied, they threaten to pack up and leave.
As exhibits, we tender those Great Guyanese Giveaways. There is Rusal, Bosai, Omai and the granddaddy of them all Baishanlin. They plundered and helped themselves in the manner of corporate barbarians, while we had to be contented with minimal jobs, no taxes, no profit sharing, and not a dime of any dividends. Worse yet, there was and still is absolutely no respect.
Then along came another set of heavyweights, this time in the mining sector, by the name of Troy Resources and Aurora Gold, who kept excavating and carrying away the gems – the heart of our riches, while we clawed for a measly percent here and another there.
Somehow, the upper limit of our mathematics education never took us past double digits, as in 10%. Jobs, royalties and taxes, profits, industrial relations respect, true partnership somehow appear to be secondary to our political and professional negotiators, or to have fallen by the wayside.
We at this publication do not believe that it is for a lack of smarts, or that our people at the table are limited and ‘dotish’. We say that the truth is far from that, as our leaders and advisers and inner circle helpers scheme for what is good for them, and are contemptuous of the interests of country and people. So, they resort to secrecy or the blandness of what never fails to intrigue and enchant: the magic word is jobs.
We at this paper, on behalf of the Guyanese people, dare to ask: what about taxes, profits, dividends? How about some transparency?
And, lastly, why are there no lessons learned from the follies and errors of that Exxon fiasco? How long are we going to continue selling the riches of this country for jobs and a few pennies?

[This article was first published in our Monday Feb. 17, 2020 edition as a front page comment]

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Confidentiality officially empowers political criminals and cronies
Anything to do with local content that is CONFIDENTIAL is a big problem, which could lead to a corruption crisis. It would make prior shenanigans look like petty thievery. It is why this paper says a loud NO to anything that is confidential relative to Local Content provisions.
It is a nonstarter and should be condemned outright. We, at Kaieteur News, so damn it.
There are substantial precedents for our unalterable stance relative to how local content can become monstrously disfigured, and this is even when things are not so confidential. Look at several countries with similar circumstances to Guyana, financially, and the stories are identical.
First, the riches are exploited by the foreigners. Second, local leaders and ruling elites spring into action to enrich themselves quickly. Third, they create a sophisticated and complicated network (a maze) of corporate entities to conceal their grand larcenies.
Most important, and fourth, the native populations of starving, suffering, and despairing are left in the gutter of their enduring impoverishment, while their political masters live high on the hog and take them for yet another crippling ride.
Unsurprisingly, the bulk of those populations cheated by their crooked and deceiving rulers – mostly democratically elected – have nothing but their lifelong miseries and anguish to show for the hundreds of billions received by and stolen by the local political bandits.
This is what we think, and sense is at work when this garbage about local content and confidentiality is merged and mentioned in the same conman’s breath. For when local content is confidential, then the shell companies, and the intricate nests of corporate creatures that are conjured to deceive, are free to operate with unchecked abandon.
Confidentiality officially empowers the politically criminal, in conjunction with their handpicked bureaucratic cronies, to come up with endless business wizardries to provide the perfect covers for corruption on a grand scale and one unimagined as to its breathtaking scale.
Confidentiality in terms of local content furnishes enough time and lots of room to engage in uninterrupted financial skullduggery without the population being any wiser. By the time that it gets some awareness, it is too late, and the tens of billions in damage is done, with no recovery possible, with little assets left to salvage to give something to the empty-handed masses.
Confidentiality facilitates much secrecy occurring and beyond early detection. This is what one government after the other practiced and prospered from, that was castigated by the then opposition, which is now the current government. Now the latter is trying to pull the same dirty trick for the same dirty result.
That is what has come to light in Angola and Equatorial Guinea, and other Third World places.
Guyanese had better come to their senses quickly, or they would share the fate of poor brethren everywhere. It must be NO to confidentiality by anybody regarding local content. A loud NO to any such provisions. A great, big NO to any schemer bringing that before the public.

This article was first published in our Friday Feb. 21, 2020 edition as a front page comment]

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