H@rd Truths By GHK Lall – The President does fair, he must aim higher

Apr 19, 2023 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

---

Kaieteur News – Today what I say is sure to surprise more than a few of my fellows. I come not with sword or spear, but with ploughshare and honest labour.  When we clash and slash at each other, we always seem to end at the same place, or worse.  While when we put in determined effort, we reap what is sown.  It has been a long time since some genuine sowing has been attempted in this roiling land; every day reduces to the passions of a no-confidence contest. Now, what I say today is that I come not to bury the President, but to praise him. Seemingly skimpily on the surface, but with a view to what has started, and which must now gather energy and momentum and continue at a higher trajectory.

Notwithstanding gaping holes in transparency, accountability, and unity, President Ali has done fair. He promised, but slipped badly; his comrades fail him, he is forced to run interference to reconcile the irreconcilable. Look at oil, public works, and they are a big part why he has to be on the defensive, and take positions that embarrass him because they make no sense; transparency is one area.  Still, I take that small start, thankful that there has been the sometimes fair from his hands. He has reached out, connected; definitely more with his own than the others in his ‘One Guyana’ construction. I caution softly: should the President maintain this standard, then the slant in his ‘One Guyana’ practices would be conspicuously towards only one kind primarily.  It already unsettles, is remembered, what ultimately defeats his drive toward a real ‘One Guyana.’

For sure, some of the President’s connections with those not his own have been of the forced variety, to wit, dictates of urgent circumstances, especially on the East Coast, long the scenes of unease and unrest.  But the underpinnings of all these distill to this: President Ali is trying.  Trying has brought positives, harvested good reviews; from small beginnings like these more momentous marches are made.  Now, His Excellency must do more, he must aim higher, he must govern for all and with his all.

In this, the approaching third year of his first stint at national leadership, President Ali has worked hard, and I believe mostly honestly.  I speak not of political honesty, but ethics and principles around the nation’s treasury, his hands are clean.  I hear of no taint attached to his name; appreciation is due.  For sure, there have been some surprising beneficiaries of the President’s good graces, but a pass is given: prerogatives of presidents, the benefits of familiarity and close proximity to the State’s chief decisionmaker.

I now use the work ethic, and the financial ethics, that the President has established as his own, and quietly share some notes compiled from the hour of his being in the commander-in-chief’s chair.  I hope they help.  The President has to get his ministers to do some honest work; too many of them are exemplary in rank dishonesty.  One name stands out currently for honesty: Minister Robeson Benn.  I strive for more, but the soil is barren to date; an eye is still open for unearthing some hidden nuggets.  If put another way: it is easier to find a tanker of crude oil in Guyana today than to locate an honest PPP minister. Considering big happenings, bigger verbal productions, and the biggest leadership contrivances with oil, finding an honest minister is akin to searching for the Holy Grail.

Thus, the President must heat the oven under his ministers, senior public servants, boards of directors, and crucial certifying field and finance officers to compel them to more effort, honest effort only.  I take these steps higher and raise the temperature on President Ali himself: Excellency, take a stand before the public and make this promise: ‘the assurance is given, and it is a guarantee, that the abusive, the disparaging, the false, and the injurious will not be allowed on the watch of this President going forward.’  No more.  Never again.  Indeed, I am putting words in the President’s mouth, but for the better.  For what enhances his image, what accrues to his benefit: only what is fair will prevail, and of that, there must be no fear.

Those who make up matters who mistreat others will be made into mincemeat.  The sergeant, majors and corporals who run amok and take it upon themselves to deal in what tarnishes presidency and clean governance will be given the back of the hand, and the tip of the boot, and know what it is to be staring from outside the backdoor; regardless of who is their political godfather.

I think President Ali has what it takes to go to higher levels, one is statesmanship.  He must manifest a willingness to engage adversaries, competition.  For if adversaries are condemned and kicked in the old manner, then the festering could cause faltering, failing. No ‘One Guyana’ ever!  My parting morsel to Guyana’s head-of-state is this: more listening leads to more learning; more learning to more growing; and more growing to more shining and lifting of everyone in Guyana. Best wishes, Excellency.

(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.)

---

• East Coast, GHK Lall, President, slash, Transparency

---