OP:ED - President Ali must rise above himself

OP:ED – President Ali must rise above himself

Jan 06, 2023 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – Recently, President Ali took to Al Jazeera to sell himself, and his Government’s handling of Guyana’s oil wealth so that all Guyanese benefit. Al Jazeera did not take to him that is for sure. I will excuse His Excellency for forgetting that he was not on NCN, or one of those media tricks that his schemers came up with; Al Jazeera is prime time, where the big boys emerge bigger, and the lesser come across as cheap snake oil salesmen. Regrettably, in his moment on the big stage, Guyana’s President came across as small-time, petty, and mean-spirited.

“Self-appointed” professors, Mr. President? On Al Jazeera before an international audience? Was that dig really necessary, Excellency? Such spitefulness is the stuff of small-timers, best reserved for local circuit, and unpresidential. But it seems as though the President when riled just has to get even, no matter the time or place, he has just got to be himself. That aside, the President had his laundry list of who got and who did not. According to him, there were only the former, as his PPPC Government does not do exclusions (discrimination). Oh, well….

GHK Lall

There was healthcare, education, house lots (house lots, Mr. President on Al Jazeera, c’mon, sir), scholarships, coders (whatever those are), and then the big blue whale of Guyana. No, it is not Orca, but goes by the more mundane description of roads. Roads by the billions of dollars. If there is anything any stoned PPP man knows, it is roads. After all, that is where the big money is. Just ask the fella who used to get all the contracts with the old PPP, then went over to the PNC, and is floating around somewhere these days. Roads, it is, and that’s telling them skipper.

Surely, the President did not expect any self-respecting Arab to take him seriously. I can’t, and I am trying my best to give my President a boost. And if the Arabs are yawning, I can only speculate what the Europeans and Africans make of all of this business about house lots and coders. I think President Ali should be pardoned when he threw around numbers that are big for him and Guyana. Like 50,000 of this, 150,000 of that, and 20,000 of something or the other. His advisers had to tell him that the sheiks and their portfolio managers deal in billions, like if such is monopoly money. So, to throw around those thousands for coders and scholarships do not impress any of these folks; that’s petty cash stuff, even though dollars are not involved. Who is advising the President in these matters? Just drop a hint, and I will expose him publicly for embarrassing the nation’s head-of-state. I have a funny feeling that I know who it is.

Anyhow, the President really got into the heavy stuff when this whole Third World business came up (or he brought it up himself). I saw the warning signs: the narrowed eyes, the combative snarl escaping despite his best efforts at locking down, as he let them have it. Don’t mess with Guyana. Don’t dare diss me!

Earth to President! Earth calling President Ali! I have a strange feeling that the President’s handlers were struggling to do some damage control in advance. For while the President kicked up a storm with his Third World hit jingle, about Guyana’s being on top of things, something surfaced embarrassingly. It was the Kaieteur News’ January 3^rd edition, and that damning front page. We can momentarily ignore Mr. David Patterson and his blast about ‘disastrous’ since that can be chalked up to Guyana’s usual heartwarming politics. In the next instance, I do not know what President Ali and his people plan to do about those seven ‘nothings’, such as updated petroleum laws (not a priority), and no independent regulators (who needs them anyhow), and no parliamentary scrutiny (a rubberstamp, as intended).

There was Guyana’s President giving the world every assurance that Third World limitations have no hold on us, we are bigger and better than that, only for KN to all but reverse everything he said in that regard. The President and his Palace Guard may have even less use for the likes of me (if that is conceivable), but those seven deficiencies (NOs), all major showstoppers are exactly the kinds of missing ingredients that characterize what goes on in Third World countries that find oil. These are the clever openings through which Governments turn around and squander the wealth by sharing it with cronies to the great distress and dismay of their poor brethren. Proper audits protect, modernised laws protect, parliamentary scrutiny protects, independent regulators protect. So why they are not in place and functioning, I think the PPPC Government knows best, and on this I will give the President a pass since his hand is in tiger mouth, and he is stuck with his circumstances. It is called presidential appointment.

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