AG Nandlall modernising oil laws and constructive lockdown (?)

Sep 12, 2021 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

Encouraging Events, Disturbing Developments…

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – I am encouraged that the Hon. Attorney General (AG), Anil Nandlall, is on the move to modernise Guyana’s ancient petroleum laws, is searching for an international law firm to guide the process. That is a good thing, which would be something much better if the AG’s actions provide evidence of a few mandatory personal features. Stellar modernising of Guyana’s laws, with real teeth and protective impacts, could only be realised if the AG modernises his mind. I recommend that he does so, and of which the primary exhibits would be what benefits this country and not cronies, what enriches this poor society and not vulgar scoundrels, what is best for the people, and not the oil perverts in his party. I think he just may be able to do these things, but only if he decides to be different than he has ever been before.
My understanding is that the AG is a betting man. I think I will keep my cash in my pillowcase, just in case the AG disappoints. However, please don’t place bets on the future welfare of citizens by squandering the search for an international law firm, by settling for another set of tainted people. The AG knows what I mean, and who should come to mind. I will help him a little: people with links to Exxon. People with a history of being compromised by dark histories and dirty tricks. He has them in his own leadership ranks and those across the political aisle, for starters; so, with this he should have no difficulty. Just do the right thing, Mr. AG, and who knows a real doctorate could be had. For too long, this oil of ours has been saturated by the onion of pungency. It has reduced a whole nation to tears, with the real deep decay on the way.
Tears and decay are what disturbs with this COVID-19 virus. It is not the frightening virus itself, but of how we go about handling it. I think we have an unofficial official lockdown of sorts in motion. A constructive national lockdown. Except that it is not called that, it is labelled voluntary but mandatory vaccination. Somebody in the PPP/C Government is making a damn fool of all Guyanese. I quickly disentangle myself from such political antics.
Unvaccinated Guyanese were first restricted from all public places, which was then extended with the net expanding to impact private places open to the public. Even a skim of an examination conveys that this is a lot of territory from which the unvaccinated is prohibited: government offices for services; private businesses for transactions; medical institutions for relief; and places of worship for praying. Not much is left, when one considers the reach of these measures, what is left in the daily demands of life, outside the ring of restricted places.
Everyone knows where I stand with vaccinations. I wish that all citizens thought similarly, acted identically and swiftly. Regardless of whether they did or didn’t, we have a horde of unvaccinated screaming and weighing, and a de facto lockdown in place. I wish that the government had come straight out and flat out declared: this is where things are, and what has to be done. It flies in the face of commonsense that, on the one hand, there is anticipation from medical authorities of an approximately 300 percent increase in cases, the presence of the Delta variant, rising deaths and infections daily; and, on the other, there is reopening of schools, mandating vaccination, and then contending that it is individually discretionary.
It is mandatory, or it isn’t. There is a lockdown, or there isn’t. I detect this cleverness with phrases and postures, that leave all of us hanging, including the fully vaccinated. When there is this unexpressed, official opening (discretionary), then fire is being played with, to the detriment of all. I think the government, in its emphasis on cuteness, is splitting hairs while dancing on pinheads, in its determination to come across as accommodating and reasonable. It fails. PPP/C leaders are struggling to have things both ways. They lose. This disturbs.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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