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Changing tune

Jun 07, 2023 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Guyana’s Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo, the lead manager of this nation’s oil wealth, is a study in the crafty world of theatrics. The Vice President has so often changed his tune about renegotiating the ExxonMobil oil contract that he is now a combination of Mohamed Rafi, Sundar Popo, Lata Mangeshkar, and Beyonce, all rolled into one. When the Vice President should take a position, hold the line, and say this is where everything stands, he is like a wave -up and down, and all around.

A former President should have the self-respect, the thoughtfulness, to not do this to himself, to represent his people better, all those who trust him so much. A Vice President who is in charge of a country’s riches cannot be this wishy-washy, so cleverly creative, engage in such contortions of himself. No oil minister, which Jagdeo is, should go to the lengths that he does to evade taking any action that has to do with renegotiating the 2016 ExxonMobil oil contract that the company dumped upon this country, and which now rubs the nose of Guyanese into the ground.

He has been a fine example of verbal innovations that weigh down the people of this country with great injustices.  First, he came up with the sacred power of sanctity of contract, which means that no approach that would dare to touch the ExxonMobil must ever surface.  Suddenly, Bharrat Jagdeo has found religion, is a true believer about what is sacred, what should stay in that immaculate state.  This is amazing from someone whose vocabulary never held words like sanctity and sacred in it.  It is becoming crystal clear in the skills and strengths that the Vice President deploys to shield ExxonMobil and its profits, and how much he exposes his own Guyanese, and contributes to their ongoing impoverishment.

When sanctity of contract ran into turbulence, Jagdeo regrouped and came up with another gem that he thought was so glittering it would blind Guyanese, and drive fear into them.  It was that if the ExxonMobil oil contract is changed, foreign investors would get as skittish as a horse, and bolt for the exits; or those that were thinking of coming would change their minds, and sit on their money. The reality is that savvy investors would have heard all the noise coming out of Guyana about the one-sided nature of the contract and factored the probability of it being changed into their risk matrix. They would have also heard the criticisms and cautions of foreign experts and people in reputable think tanks, and found a place for those in their own concerns and considerations. With that being said, foreign investors, whether already here or potential, would still conclude that Guyana is a great place to put their money, and among the safest of bets, so rich and sure its prospects are. So, when Jagdeo digs deep, and comes up with these productions, all he does is deliver another dud, a loser of low standing.  This is another revelation of how hard the Vice President labours against going anywhere near the ExxonMobil contract, and doing something about it.

When he failed to scare Guyanese about what sensitive, and much-needed, investors would do, he changed his tune, and composed a new song. His newest symphony is that changing the ExxonMobil contract, even touching it, would destroy the momentum in place. If a non-Guyanese had said this, one would understand. If it was someone who is poor at reading and writing and is out of touch with real life, there could be some sympathy. But Jagdeo is neither, and knows better than to engage in the distortions that dig a deeper hole for himself, that inspire ExxonMobil to assault Guyanese with more economic brutalities, and that leave hopeful citizens in disgust and despair.

Jagdeo was the Opposition Leader who cursed the same oil contract that he now cherishes.  Jagdeo was the politician who sang harsh, bitter songs about the ExxonMobil contract that has no place, no standing, among civilized people.  Today, Bharrat Jagdeo sings different songs, his tunes have a sickly sound about them. How and why is ExxonMobil able to bend him six ways to Sunday where this contract is concerned?

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