Leaders cannot operate like secret agents

Jun 26, 2021 Editorial

Kaieteur News – The business of this country cannot, and must not, continue to be conducted in the dark. Guyanese leaders must not feel comfortable with throwing any canned slop at citizens and expect that such would be found acceptable. There is too much going on at this time, involving too much money, representing too much of the potential of this nation that must be realised, and with which there must not be the same regular failures and farces. We at this paper will say it right away and for the first of several times in this writing: national leaders cannot conduct this country’s affairs, as if they are secret agents.

Secret agents operate undercover; most of their words are whispered out of earshot in dark corners and out of the way places. Our leaders must not be this way. Secret agents make a tremendous effort by pretending at living clean, normal lives (like any regular John Public or Jane Doe), but all the while living double lives in behaviours that are the opposite of what they say and do in public. In other words, they have one way for the light of daytime, and another that is embraced by those who love the darkness, with its evils, sometimes imagined, but never far from being real. This is not the way that Guyanese political leaders must be.

They have lied and deceived, with one trick after another, and on big things. They have to stop doing what anyone who pays attention can see through. It is only because this society is so hopelessly divided that they can even think about these questionable, borderline, and outright deceitful practices, actually do them, and then get away with them, again and again. In a real democratic society, a vibrant one, leaders would have been called out, in the sharpest terms, for the frauds that they are, and given the boot. The affairs of this country may have been conducted, to a greater or lesser degree, in this secret manner by all prior governments. But that was then, when we had less, and this is now, when there is so much more that is on the table.
Today, we have oil and gas, and by the billions of barrels. That is not small change, not even when world market prices are rock bottom, for these precious commodities. Or money to play around with, since it belongs to the nation. Or to play the fool with, since it is the children’s future that is involved. The usual crooked leadership visions that, in their hearts, are about what is personally financially ambitious, have to come to a hard stop. This secrecy and the undercover behaviour, the full-out culture of secret agents for leaders in action has be called out and condemned for what it is.

Since this chronic leadership secrecy and secret agent operations are what is at work with oil and gas, with gold and other precious minerals, with monies borrowed and owed, with monies spent and not cleanly and clearly accounted for, then all the promises of the future could be lost, and Guyanese would be none the wiser for it. By the time citizens get wise and get enlightenment, the money horse would have bolted from the stable. Secret agent leaders would have ransacked the bank and vault, carried away everything, and left nothing behind.

We, the citizens, would be left scrambling for the scraps, like crabs in a barrel. When we can’t get our sliver of the scraps, then we would pounce on the nearest neighbour (just like trapped crabs) and tear apart limb by limb. It is why we insist that the serious business of this nation must be put on the table, so that interested members of the population can educate themselves, check for themselves, and satisfy themselves. No one would have to depend on any occasional scanty information handout from slippery government leaders, or expect anything from shaky opposition members, when it pleases either, as if they are doing the public a favour.
It is time that secrecy with oil be done away with, that the light takes over. It is time for contract terms and conditions to come out of the closet, so that all Guyanese could be better for it. What is there for them? What is wrong with what is there? That is transparent governance. That is how a democracy functions, in the open air, where leaders have no need to be secret agents.

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Leaders cannot operate like secret agents

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