H@rd Truths By GHK Lall – President Ali and CEO Hess

Jun 25, 2023 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

---

Kaieteur News – It is my ardent hope that Guyana’s President Ali did not sell.  I also wish that Hess Corp’s CEO John Hess was not laboring under a spell.  But there was Mr. Hess relaying to his assembly of killer sharks at that J.P Morgan power conference the unthinkable, the unmentionable, and the unbelievable.  From Mr. Hess’s own lips, it was that the Guyanese head of state had all but guaranteed to him that a “stay would be put in place” relative to the ruling by Guyana’s courageous and sagacious Judge Sandil Kissoon.  In a nutshell, it was that Exxon must give a written parent company guarantee to Guyana should a big, bad oil explosion occur offshore.

The words attributed Mr. Hess: first, “a stay would be put in place” followed later by the more careful and qualified “there was no reason why a stay should not be granted” can be interpreted from now to eternity, and as it pleases, but they do ring wrong.  It is my belief, and based on past verbal gyrations of local and foreign oil powers.

This is bad news for Guyana.  If Mr. Hess is on the money about a “stay” as presidentially emphasized, to his killer shark audience huddled around the J.P. Morgan watering hole, then that is bad news for everybody.  It is bad Guyanese people, for it leaves them exposed and in a dangerous place.  It smells bad for the Guyanese judiciary that its deliberations could be subjected to the worrying.  It looks bad for PPP Government and President, whether there was reaching, leaning, into where neither belongs, the sacred realms of local jurisprudence.  Most of all, it does an injustice to Court of Appeal Judge Rishi Persaud, hangs clouds over his head, when only haloes would do.  If what was articulated by Chief Executive Hess as allegedly said by Guyana’s Chief Executive Ali has any iota of truth, then the corona around Judge Persaud’s neck (not to be confused with Judge Gino Persaud) takes on some dimness, sickliness, perverseness.  The judge deserves better for his yeoman toils.

I am willing to conclude that Mr. Hess misspoke in his gushing excitements to a group hanging onto his every word.  They would since it is Guyana and its oil that is the subject.  I had cautioned the man from America that when he speaks so effusively, he could let the cat out of the bag one day.  Guyanese are still weighing whether that day did come before that company of the killer sharks at the J.P. Morgan energy confab.  The keen should notice that it is the third time that I labeled the big shots and big hitters at that conference ‘killer sharks’ for it is what they are.  They are always in the hunt all around the world for the next big payday.  They are all sonar and ultra sensitivity when there are developments about roadblocks to their cash flow.  What Judge Kissoon did was throw a spanner and a shovel into their calculations and collections.  But, thankfully, what John Hess reported, as he supposedly got firsthand from none other than Guyana’s President Ali, was sure to make everyone gulp down their anxieties, and celebrate with a great big cheer for President Ali (and the judge).  The attendees would later gulp down a stiff double slug of their favorite expensive beverage, and give an inebriated cheer to President Ali at the end of the day for providing a judicial miracle for them.

Further, and closer to the bosom, I had also humbly cautioned cousin Ali to be a shade more circumspect when he engages in his flights of verbal delights.  My fear was that, in time, he would risk giving away of the house and the dogs also.  Taking Mr. Hess’s exposition at face value, it seems that my fears now come back to do more than haunt, they horrify.  If Mr. Hess is right, then what executive and governmental blights have been hung on the Guyana judiciary?  I will be frank: Judge Persaud has compiled a sterling reputation for remarkable astuteness and canniness.  What I am asking myself (and all Guyana should, plus foreign onlookers also) is whether the President’s (and Mr. Hess’s caginess got the better of him, and led him to the wrong side of the street.

To repackage and redeliver in a different way, concerns mount regarding whether the reach and influence of the PPP Government, the PPP wise guys, and the PPP visionaries did touch delicately one of the last standing bastions of integrity and national dignity in this country.  This could be Guyana’s equivalent of golf course governance.  I shudder at the thought that a worst-case scenario was contemplated, put in motion, and then caramba! The incredible came about, just like that.  All things considered, His Excellency Ali must be allowed the space to say a few words (or as many as pleases him) to clear the air that John Hess fouled recently in the United States of America.  Mr. Hess spoke about presidential emphasis on a “stay”.  Now it is President Ali’s turn, and he must not stay his mind, nor stay his lips.

(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.)

---

• CEO, GHK Lall, H@rd Truths, Hess, President Ali

---