OP:ED – What value leadership, promises, commitment 

Feb 14, 2023 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

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By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – In a recent address, Guyana’s President Ali spoke repeatedly of how the Production Sharing Agreement has become an “obsession” for some, which has now reached a state that is “paranoid.”  I thought that His Excellency would be wise, stop while the going was good.  But, having developed his now customary head of steam, he plunged into treacherous waters, which dragged him to places that he was best advised not to go.

Randomly, our President’s delivery touched upon “when you inherit” certain things such should be “honoured”.  The President is absolutely right about the “inherit” part of the PSA, and I could not agree with him more about what should be “honoured.”  But, as the President should know, his group when in Opposition was loud and insistent about what it was going to do with that same PSA, if elected to govern.  The President’s group, the PPP is now the Government of Guyana.  I now repeat how senior members of his PPP Government have damned the same PSA that he now waxes brilliantly about honouring.  They rightly denounced it as a “crime”, the “worst crime” and the “crime of the century.”

With those as contexts, my humble questions to His Excellency are simplicity itself: how, sir, is a crime (from one’s own group’s lips repeatedly) “honoured?”  How about honouring insiders’ word often uttered publicly?  How about honouring the promises and commitments made by trusted luminaries in the PPP hierarchy?  Is there no value to such word, promises, commitments made to Guyanese hopefuls?  Were their utterances hot air, rancid politics, or saying anything for the sake of ascending to office?  In other words, dare I ask to knowingly and willing, all too easily, speak to what is deceptive, totally deviousness for the worst objectives? Naked, unscrupulous ambition by any means, at any cost?

In a tradition and system of ‘one for all and all for one,’ whoever speaks the words of commitment speaks for the entire group, then Opposition, now government.  For if a man cannot honour his own words, a group cannot stand for what all swore to deliver, then there is only the shallow, and what commonsense categorizes as the rankest scurrilousness.  Using their own words as context, and as foundation, I exhort the President to help me understand what kind of leadership we live with, what type of government it is that Guyanese have.  I think that both the President and his closest people are fully aware that in societies with more accountability, the taint of a deception is the equivalent of enduring political death.  I move on.

In a more tempered, I say civilized, moment, His Excellency mentioned choices.  Choice one: honour the agreement; two, go to court; or three, plug up the well.  Considering these three presidential choices, I am appalled at this barrenness of astuteness, this season of the extreme, especially with choice three, maybe even number two.  If to ask for 2% more in royalty is a life-and-death issue for investors, then it is better, perhaps, that there is the loss of confidence in those kinds of investors, and the accompanying “capital flight” of which the President spoke.  I push not for an increase from 2% to 22%, but 6%, or 5%, even 4% as a floor.  President Ali is capable of many forgettable things, Mr. Routledge, too.  But I don’t think that either is capable of concluding that such a minimal enhancement of the PSA’s royalty rate (and other elements) would be such a showstopper, trigger such rancor, that investor confidence sours, and capital takes flight.  President Ali spoke earnestly about possible loss of national credibility.  What credibility, my lord, when Guyana is mocked as a global dummy!

Going out on a limb, and in a thinly veiled allusion, the President mentioned neighbours and consequences.  I said earlier it is the season of extremes. Venezuela’s ultimate aim was expulsion of Americans, with nationalisation all but the officially stated objective. Dr. President, when some Guyanese, (my hand raised), call for renegotiation, nationalisation in increments, or virtual takeover, has never crossed the mind, never in the calculation.

I shall not denigrate my President by asserting that he knows not of which he speaks, ventures where he shouldn’t go.  But I say this: show me the competing set of oil conditions like Guyana’s that justifies capital flight from here, and I will surrender, retreat.

When the cream of the PPP, the government’s bright lights, opportunistically condemned in cascades of curses, is now cherished under circumstances presidentially claimed, I ask how come this is only now asserted?  That succeeding governments inherit, and honoring what went before must follow?  Why then the earlier powerful speeches, the crooked dice?  Politicking is easy, governing honestly and honorably leading, is one hell of a different story.  I think that this is what President and the PPP Government are up against: really governing and truly leading, only for both to be found lacking.  Thus, there are these verbal sleights-of-hand, flourishes about newfound honour, oral smoothies, dodges, and slipperiness.

(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.)

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• GHK Lall, Guyanese, Politics, PPP hierarchy, Production Sharing Agreement

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