Rain, Rowley, row over DPP’s Office action

May 29, 2022 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

Encouraging Events, Discouraging Developments…

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – Exxon held Guyana hostage with oil deal, now it’s our turn to hold it to ransom with Liza-1 renewal. Don’t renew if Exxon doesn’t give satisfactory concessions to Guyana.
The rains came in torrents on Monday, brought climbing floodwaters. Pictures from faraway Regions prompted leaning away, as if there. I was close enough in Georgetown where I observed citizens wading through waters reaching the knees. I can only imagine the state of ground level homes. This discourages terribly.
For we are spending billions upon billions on massive new projects with mounting leadership excitements, but we are comfortable turning our faces away from the soggy reality of what is taking place in our front yard and before doorstep, be such work, school, shop, or residence. The Rupununi and other places are bad enough, but the watery agony of our capital city is beyond belief. It is plastered on our noses, and cannot be hidden, or justified in any way by anyone from top to bottom. Rather than allocate responsibility, I believe that we can do better, and it starts with having the self-respect to say at the highest leadership levels that this waterlogged embarrassment is both a national disgrace and humiliation and a reflection on me. It must be stopped.
It is why I encourage leaders in the PPP Government not to view Georgetown as a PNC city, but a viable segment of this country’s energy, inclusive of its commerce, administration, services, and nerve centres. Toying with, or paying short thrift to, such circumstances, or punishing the city deliberately and unadvisedly, is a music sheet that will haunt in numerous for a while to come. We have too many big people coming here, and before they get to offshore rigs and downstream business riggings, they have to have some interaction with the big city.
The capital is our red carpet, as ragged and rusted, even rotted, as it is. Drainage networks, financing options, and flood management decisions must come together to ease this state of discreditable appearance, this sickly situation that taints all Guyanese. It does that to me. This conversion to Lake Georgetown on every rainy occasion must be a thing of the past, and we must find the will to make it so. Surely, the President as airy as he can be, is not so sluggish as not to appreciate the putrid ambience of a continually flooded capital that houses, surrounds, and embarrasses him. He must do something, and it must be different. If not, we will continue to be a comic book country, and nothing else, notwithstanding all our wealth. Almost like a rich man living in a fleabag motel.
Next, Dr. Keith Rowley came and saw, which forced him to his own conclusions: he is not the most well-received visitor to Guyana, he did not conquer. He had to be gratified with that MOU, a nice gesture, a solid step in the right direction. At least, he had something to show for his trip to his people. But he is aiming for the bigger engagement of Guyana refining its oil at the soon-to-be-available Petrotrin. It would be an encouraging sign of neighbourliness and sound business sense if that were to happen. It is only a couple of hours away by ship, versus a couple of weeks to the eastern ends of the earth. We could use the cost savings, and the also likely refining cost concessions from hard bargaining with a strapped Trinidad. I encourage the President of Oil to go for it. Build an oil bridge, cement a firm national bond.
Last, the DPP’s office got itself into a heavy row over its wisdom in the matter of racial incitement between the policewoman and the lawman. Yes, interactions can degrade to such alleged stinking states. My thinking is that the better course would have been for the DPP’s office to let the contentious confrontation run its course in the courts on its own. Its intervention necessitated its explanation of the interpretation that the DPP’s office came up with in this battle of bruising words and battered spirits. It didn’t do well, it doesn’t look good. Biased is the appearance.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)