Oil management: PPP, PNC, Exxon

May 29, 2023 News

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Hard truths…

By: GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – Circumstances have forced my hand.  I am compelled to do a side-by-side of the PPP Government and the PNC Opposition, regarding where both are, and what both represent in the days ahead, with this oil wealth of ours.  I would prefer not having to do this, for it does the worst thing possible for Guyana and Guyanese: its lays bare before all what we have for oil sentinels, what we are left with for oil bastions.  I regret, I am ashamed, to say that we have nothing.  Absolutely nothing!  We are exposed and vulnerable.  And we should be despondent of spirit when what is going on is considered frankly and deeply and unsparingly.

By way of explanation, when I speak of the PPP Government, I speak of Dr. Jagdeo.  Also, when I identify the PNC Opposition, I have in mind Mr. Norton.  What is going on with these groups?

Beyond a doubt, the PPP removes every obstacle and hurdle to clear the way for the freest passage for Exxon.  Regulations diluted, people rendered impotent, institutions prostrated.  Dr. Jagdeo does not even exhibit any qualms anymore at how far he has traveled on the Exxon superhighway; he makes no bones about now openly lobbying for, blatantly consorting with, an oil partner that is less a paramour and more of a prostitute.  What else and how else do I describe the wretchedness that is inflicted upon the Guyanese people with every new development, be it in the oilfields, or as a result of the judiciary adjudicating, or from observing Guyana’s Environmental Protection Agency rendered non compos mentis?  How else, but to take the gloves off and unsheathe scabbard?

The PNC has been a series of disappearing acts, and hews to no line, other than one that is wavy, and makes me think of gravy.  I would like to be informed, I suppose all Guyana would, as to where the PNC stands with this oil.  What does it have?  What is the group going to be about in getting a grip on Exxon and getting more for Guyanese?  Rather than give some substance, some string or some synopsis, what Guyanese got from the PNC and its leader, Mr. Norton, is some new type of smoke.  It is smoke that is invisible and one which has no essence; there is nothing that could be wrapped around a finger, even keep a butterfly in check for a second.  Why is the PNC and Mr. Norton so exemplary in presenting frail shadows, only what turns out to be about buying time and hanging the Guyanese people out to dry?

I would like to attest that the PNC Opposition is radically different from the PPP Government in how it approaches the challenges of the oil sector.  I cannot.  I prefer to assert on how it has commandeered the strategic corners, and taken the high ground, so that it can cutoff the rampages of both the Guyana Government and the American oil monstrosity.  Again, I will be damned if I do.  What is it that the PNC has done to itself that it cannot be removed from, totally different (or at least conspicuously distinctive) from the PPP in how this oil wealth is dealt with, how the powers are worked with, or confronted?  Brutally frankly, the PNC has done nothing that helps to distance it from the machinations of the PPP when this oil is under the microscope.

I pause to examine what we have for political representation in the largest, greatest industrial, commercial, and financial bonanza to be part of this country.  We have Exxon on the one side, and there is this vacuum on the Guyana side.  For their part, Dr. Jagdeo and the PPP Government cannot do enough, quickly enough, and pleasingly enough to satisfy every corporate calculation and vision of Exxon.  Dr. Jagdeo has bent himself this way and that, until by himself he has become as tangled as to be unable to be indistinguishable from coils of mating snakes.  Where the PPP has cleared the way for Exxon, the PNC has made itself unconvincingly nonexistent and gotten out of the way – by saying nothing, by doing nothing, and by standing for nothing.

Somebody needs to lay it all on the line for Guyana and the Guyanese people.  I had given up a long time ago on the PPP.  I had some expectations of the PNC and Mr. Norton.  Disappointment has crept in again, the common denominator shared by the PPP and PNC extended and thickened and solidified.  These two political groups think that they can fool all Guyanese.  I have got news for them, others like them, and Mr. Alistair Routledge of Exxon: all are as transparent, and translucently so, as if there is not a stitch of clothing on.  The political, individual, and corporate scars all show, and they are warped.  They are ugly in how much they reveal, which is why so much has to be concealed.  Something is going to have to give here, and it will have to be in liquid form.  Oh, it is not oil, and possesses a different colour.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of Kaieteur News.

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• and what both represent in the days ahead, Circumstances have forced my hand.  I am compelled to do a side-by-side of the PPP Government and the PNC Opposition, regarding where both are, with this oil wealth of ours

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