Jagdeo v. Sanzillo

Jun 04, 2022 Editorial

Kaieteur News – PPP/C Government and leaders have long manifested a consistent characteristic. There is neither patience nor tolerance for any kind of criticism, difference, or resistance to their scripts. Whenever the outspoken and factual present that hits a nerve, the glove comes off, and stridency takes over. It has to be their way, their message, and no other way. This is what Guyanese, and others elsewhere, are now privy to observe in Jagdeo v. Sanzillo, Round 1.
It is not a divorce or abortion matter, but might as well be, for if it was a court case, it could very well have ended up at the CCJ; or in another era, the Privy Council; or if Mr. Sanzillo has his say, the United States Supreme Court, given his own heritage. But it is only the matter of a sharp, spiraling disagreement over a word. Worlds have been turned upside down because of a word, vicious wars fought to settle what was enmeshed in a word.
In the instance of Jagdeo v. Sanzillo, it has to do with the word “debt.” Dr. Jagdeo of Moscow and Patrice Lumumba sees it as anything but, while Mr. Tom Sanzillo of New York, and a CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) views what is being dealt with by each Guyanese as nothing but debt, and only debt. Who has it right? Who is closer to what stands as an advocate for financial wisdom, arithmetic commonsense?
Though the Hon. Dr. Jagdeo may not like it, and it may bring out a deeper strain of his notorious meanness, we must call it as we see it. We at this publication are four-square behind Mr. Sanzillo. We place our thinking and reasoning on the table, and invite others to be the judge and jury.
The New Yorker, Mr. Sanzillo, insists that every Guyanese is indebted to Exxon for $9 million, as part of unstated public debt. The Guyanese potentate of a leader, Dr. Jagdeo, says it just can’t be. The reality is that Exxon builds that figure into its cost recovery scheme, which is then placed before Guyana, and with waiting hand outstretched. It must be honoured and paid, be it a single American dollar or the entirety of the $9 million debt overhang of each Guyanese.
Clearly, it is not income, which we are sure that Dr. Jagdeo will agree, however grudgingly. It is not an asset, which can be marked in Guyana’s favour. It is not an addition that accrues on the plus side of Guyana’s ledger. If Exxon were not to find one more drop of oil out there, it stands as a sunk cost, but would ultimately still be recoverable, should the geology lead to discovery of oil elsewhere in Guyana. Since it is neither income nor asset nor an amount that could be added to this country’s income statement, balance sheet, and checkbook, then a little light should begin to dawn in Dr. Jagdeo’s fertile and usually fevered mind.
If it is none of those things on the positive side, then it could only belong to the other side of reckoning ledgers, and of which Dr. Jagdeo knows well, but pretends at being a wrongheaded devil’s advocate. Because he has found it fit to carp about this matter of it is not public debt, then his preference may be for that individual debt load of $9 million to be housed in some Suspense Account, stay there forever, and conveniently disappear. We regret having to tell Dr. Jagdeo that it isn’t and will not be so, which he also knows.
Twist it or turn it, the $9 million standing against the name of each citizen is a liability. It is charge, when aggregated, as is the convention for these matters. It is a subtraction from against the account of the nation, hence, each Guyanese. Just like how, on the plus side, GDP is worked out on a per capita (person/head) basis, it is the same practice that holds on the other side of books and calculations. It is irrelevant whether Dr. Jagdeo likes this, but there it is. It is public debt, not something imaginary or that belongs to Trinis, but a burden over each Guyanese head.

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