Amaila Falls, citizens’ pressure and judicial appointments

Jun 05, 2022 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

>>>Encouraging Events, Disturbing Developments<<<

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – It is all about governance, the candid and clean kind. The three issues I chose this week encourage and disturb simultaneously, given how they confirm what we have for clean governance and ethical leadership in this country.
Much has been made about the return of the Amaila Falls Hydroelectric project. Like Jesse James and Wang Yu, it is doomed to die. One online newspaper called it a “snag” and another wrote of “difficulty” being experienced by China Railway, the company contracted to deliver a BOOT (Build, Own, Operate, and Transfer) setup. Somebody has to be kidding me, because the Chinese don’t have difficulty finding money, arranging money, or even making money out of thin air, when such suit their purposes. Other companies have money problems, not Chinese ones.
What I think happened is that the Chinese chiefs looked closer at this project and said, like the calypsonian, ‘I ain winin pon dah.’ If there is anybody who knows about “cow and runnins”, it is the Chinese, and they know when to cut and run. For here was a project that was talked up to heaven, only to prove that is a dud under PPP leaders’ terms. The Chinese are the best loan sharks around, and if short where to get funds (Hu Jintao), so this farce about financing stresses tells me the disturbing. It is that leaders in the PPP Government demands, through side deals, were too much for even the usual unfazed, cooperative Chinese. So, they gave Guyana the BOOT and jump ship in midstream. Remember: this is less about Chinese money weakness and more about Guyanese leadership crookedness. Try some opium and see the light, folks.
Then, the majestic Vice President is reported to have acknowledge that it was pressure from citizens that forced the ABC heads to knock money sense in the skulls of leaders of oil companies operating in their countries. It was pay more, or there is the door. But then the VP mysteriously said that doing the same would violate Guyana’s oil contract with Exxon. I am still figuring out why Guyana’s political Superman is worried about Exxon and fighting its fight. Let Exxon use that defense, not our leaders. What the magnificent VP should have been doing is what he is good at, namely, whip his people into a frenzy and get them to howl about that ugly PNC contract, and how much it needs addressing because they are hurting.
If the VP really wants to get Woods’ and Routledge’s goat, then he ought to get with Opposition Leader Norton and workout how to get masses of Guyanese raging about the oil contract in the streets. Guyana’s leaders need to make things ‘hot, hot, hot’ for Exxon by having their combined constituencies raising the roof without letup and bringing down Exxon’s house. I strongly recommend that to our leaders, if only to see how wimpy or warrish they are. My second recommendation is for the VP and OL to have a sit-down (Mafia style) with Exxon’s top people, and say this is the showdown coming down, because “we can’t pacify de Guyanese peeple nuh moh. Dah is wah ah call peeple pressuh.” It is why Guyana needs togetherness.
Instead of the skirmishing and grandstanding, both VP and OL know what they have to do with Exxon fuh mek it geh sum sense. And the beauty is that Guyanese don’t have to be drunk and disorderly to get what they want.
Last, are crucial judicial appointments, I notice that PPP leaders publicly articulated their problems with some senior lady jurists. I recall that it was American President Eisenhower, who said that his worst mistake was naming Earl Warren to the Supreme Court. He never said it publicly, which maintains this charming sham about independence of the judiciary. Some are won, some lost; and that must be lived with cheerfully. It is enlightening that PPP leaders would prefer only those judges that favour them. Ha, ha, so much for all this balderdash and hogwash about judicial wisdom and neutrality. It boils down to this: ‘mek sure yuh fix de ting fuh we, yuh warship.’ Governance that disturbs endlessly.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)