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Apr 17, 2022 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

Encouraging Events, Disturbing Developments…

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – I have difficulty believing that Exxon’s people have honest bones in their bodies. Then again, some connections cannot be avoided, for the correlations are there, just can’t be denied. This has to do with oil and fishing; how one impacts the other, which one end up being the loser. Some gratitude is necessary on this Easter Day for a moment of rare credibility from Exxon and its goodly folks. I am encouraged that the dogged at KN (April 13) drilled deeply and unearthed the damning. Since it is Easter, I replace damning with damaging.
It is said that the devil is in the details, deep down in it for those determined and patient enough to probe for it; they usually find it. From its own Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), Exxon did disclose that the fishes would have problems. I deleted such qualifiers as ‘potential’ and ‘the risk’ of problems; it is real. This was what was buried deep in the vault of the Payara EIA (not to be mistaken for one of those nursery rhymes of old); that the sights and sounds and smells and spillages from Exxon’s offshore operations would wreak havoc with marine life there. Fish would be chased away, oil-related poisons released, and much damage would be done. To fish and fisherfolk. To buyer and consumer.
This finding of KN just rendered meaningless whatever studies are being done, or said to be in the works regarding environmental impacts. Thus, all this sparring by the EPA, and pretending by Government leaders that all is well, have come back to haunt them. It is disturbing that our own institutions and our own rulers (who are also ruled in their turn) saw it fit to play at ignorance, to mislead, to do nothing mitigating or helpful. There was not even an attempt at damage control, because to do so meant holding up mighty Exxon, and the resident American lady chief would not like such a development. She is protecting her own. Who is protecting Guyana’s vulnerable, now worrying, definitely losing?
Then, there is this latest developing public tussle between Central Government and City Government. KN’s edition of April 13 noted the respective combatants in the persons of the Hon. Attorney General and Hizzoner, the Mayor of Georgetown (or what is left of it and still in his hands). It is over street vending and the troubles that emerge from that corner. This is a mixed bag of both the encouraging and disturbing under one umbrella. It is encouraging that a leading political figure says there is the necessity to do something about the encroachments, the traffic snarls, the possible dangers. It is disturbing that the targets are those hustling an honest living. Well, there is no bacon without pigs, no omelets without eggs. Something has to give here, some sensible fallback provisions made, which brings me to the other disturbing aspect of our mode of governance and leadership.
There doesn’t have to be this open, public warfare (it is already that, isn’t it?) about how to go about getting it right. If the objective is total control, then the AG is on the way on behalf of his masters. If the idea (a costly scarcity in this society) is to find a balance, a workable medium, before an alarming reality, then I think it is better to put heads together for a solution than to put up dukes for a confrontation. People get bruised, and many a time the resulting battering can be reciprocal. Nobody wins. There is nothing Easterly about this, simply practicality. When the fighting is continuous, then all we will do is keep picking up pieces. Last, an economist spoke of ‘reckless spending’ on infrastructural projects (KN April 13 again). I am encouraged that there are Guyanese who see what is going on, and for what it is. Infrastructure is lovely, lovelier when delivered completely cleanly, and not as opportunity for billion-dollar thievery. But even then, citizens cannot feed on steel, glass, and concrete. They are hungry and hurting, let there be a balance with spending on projects and putting something on the table for the small people.
(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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