As Chair, I reached the Gold Board with a $12 billion deficit and reduced it to $4 billion

Oct 08, 2020 Letters

Dear Editor,

A good friend called to share that someone named Erika Smith wrote in the Guyana Chronicle attacking me and my work at the Guyana Gold Board. Although I have done this before and am doing this blindly (not having condescended to read what the so-called Ms. Smith penned) I proceed to do this again in the interests of setting the record straight. The editor of the Guyana Chronicle is included in this writing for him or her to decide what truths matter and whether such should be shared with Guyanese.

I was told that Ms. Smith’s writing said that I should stop misleading the public and tell the truth about the GY$4 billion Bank of Guyana deficit left under my watch. I do so now with the facts, which are supported by the GGB’s accounting records, the Bank of Guyana records, and all other related documents. In March 2017, when I assumed the chairmanship of the Gold Board, the Bank of Guyana deficit stood in excess of GY12 billion. In three years, that deficit was reduced by almost 66% to approximately GY$4 billion when I left. I repeat for emphasis and in the interests of clarity: the deficit at the start of my tenure was over GY$12 billion; when I left it was GY$4 billion. I challenge Ms. Smith, the Hon. Vice President, the Hon. Minister Indar, the Hon. Minister of Natural Resources to all be honest enough and truthful enough to contradict or come clean with the truth and the facts, as they stand. Not because of what I say (again) today, but as the records testify and as truths bear out. I dare them all to manifest the integrity to be about such transparency, even if only for the first time in their existences. Then, let the Guyanese people decide who is misleading whom.

Also, I have no lands, mining permits, contractual relationships, or anything related to gold or the people’s business in any other area in any shape or form that I took, or can be attached to me, or is held by me. My business is an open book, and again I challenge all those honorable people to send their people to scrutinize my private and official dealings, to determine what I owned before, what I accumulated since, and what I have now that doesn’t belong to me by the sweat of my brow. Now I appreciate that the people I direct my challenges to cannot do the same, but that is not my interest. Anybody can come after me, but they must make sure that they come good. I suppose that when the Erika Smiths surface, that this is the degree of honesty that His Excellency, President Dr. Irfaan Ali, had promised so stirringly at his inauguration. Obviously, we are far apart, and to the detriment of the president, on what honesty is all about and at the core.

Separately, we talk of democracy in this country, and all that that represents is another buzzword. I remind all of the PPP brain trust and propaganda artistes, from the president and Vice-president on down, that genuine transparency means continuing scrutiny, through the intensity of honest inquiry. It is becoming apparent that the PPP government is all about empty words and nothing about ethical deeds. For there is this Ms. Erika Smith (who could be man, woman, Black or Indian) who is created out of nothing and put to work like one of Pavlov’s mutts. This was what was practiced as far back as in the 1990s, as I can attest, when nonexistent creatures-sometimes with Afro sounding names-were produced by the propaganda mill to mislead. I caution today, like I did then, do not pick the wrong person. Pick a thief, which should be easy, given their proliferation and the close understanding of PPP leaders of what large scale thievery encompasses.

Last, I remember the instruments used to rightly batter the PNC during the elections’ hiatus, that are now largely ignored, found contemptible. I remind the PPP leadership of the EU report that spoke of dark money campaign financing and the problems they posed, which today’s leaders and ministers are struggling to dodge. I also remind of what that EU report recommended about state media ownership. The antics of mystics such as Ms. Erika Smith, who deal in the occult stand as stark testimony of the tangled webs weaved by the PPP and that, despite all the blabber, it is the same dirty business as usual.

Yours truly,

GHK Lall

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