Leaders speak from both sides of their mouth simultaneously

Jun 03, 2021 Letters

Dear Editor,

I think SN’s editorial of May 31 covered a lot of territory and did not leave much untouched. Spot on, I would say. It reflects how the business of this country is piloted by government.

In his inauguration address, Guyana’s leader made a firm commitment to the nation, which he has been silky enough to keep respectable distance from, since that heraldic day. His Excellency vowed to deliver transparency, which I thought was utterly lovely. Since that celebratory hour, it is now incontestable that transparency was a combination of hot air and empty calories, which collides with a slippery slope. The birth certificate of that slippery slope identifies it: Secret Confidential Governance; born August 2, 2020.

This child – Secret Confidential Governance – is one fast learner, the most calculating student anywhere. Look around. Lend an ear. Spare a minute to read and the same national abominations occur and recur, with material national things. Raise hand and question settlement specifics of questionable land deals involving three Guyanese businessmen, and the curtains come down – confidential, buster; sit down and shut up. Dare to press for a little light on natural resources contracts, and the Kremlin is encountered – secrecy reigns. Who let those people inside? Call out on gold or oil, what the nation needs to know, and the tear gas canisters travel: secret and confidential. It is confidential, stupid. Now be gone! That is never so easy in a true democracy, with what SN termed “copout.” Even when the wellbeing of the people is menaced, there are these political hijinks with secrecy and confidentiality.

Clearly, leaders, from top to bottom, succeed at the near impossible: they speak from both sides of their mouth simultaneously. Given the repetitions of these ominous political practices, secret and confidential have been refined to where they are the norm; in fact, they have combined forces to vise this country in a monopoly, with the two functioning as co-heads. Just as Guyana is headed, with one head pretending at urbane Dr. Jekyll (promising much), while the other tries to conceal the spasms of a manic Mr. Hyde (hiding everything). It has been topnotch political theater, costarring confidentiality and secrecy.

I would not care about this culture of secrecy and confidentiality, but the president promised; presidents must honor their word: unbreakable, sacred. The president promised transparency, which could have been his finest hour, save that he has crashed head-on into his government’s self-erected roadblocks of secrecy and confidentiality on everything. I, an infidel, share this reminder from the Holy Koran, I share Surah 24, verse 15: “Behold, you received it on your tongues, and said out of your mouths things of which you have no knowledge; you thought it to be a light matter, while it was most serious in the sight of Allah.” In my own humble layman’s words, do not swear transparency, and then turn right around, and be nothing other than that of taut confidentiality and secrecy. I rest my case and mosey on along.

Yours truly,
GHK Lall

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