H@rd Truths By GHK Lall – Reuter’s sensation, Guyana’s devastation

Jul 16, 2023 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – Prominent Guyanese businessman, Mr. Nazar ‘Shell’ Mohamed has made the news again, and with some very deep and disturbing elements embedded.

Worse news is that an internationally recognized entity, Reuters, broke the news.  It is bad, very bad.  It seems as though the Reuters smash hit every new outfit in Guyana, and set their pages ablaze.  Some high-profile matters were identified, with the even more high-profile Mr. Mohamed listed as a major presence.  Though there were the usual conditionals of “sources” and “official” and “US”, what must be noted is all of this rises to only the level of ‘alleged’ currently.  Accurate or not, Mr. Mohamed is in deep, murky creeks.  Weighing this latest startling development on troubling things in Guyana, I offer a few thoughts.

For the alien or newcomer, I know Mr. Nazar Mohamed fairly well.  He is a fellow citizen, not a friend.  More importantly, how I see this Reuters release, with all of its underpinnings and tentacles, is what I now write and share.

First, Mr. Mohamed has come out blasting from the hip with a media release of his own.  It is a necessary move that has its benefits.  But what I am about to recommend has more benefits, though the downside is obvious.  Mr. Mohamed should sue to express his consternation at the vilification of his person.  Of course, his whole life, all of his records, could become subject to the most critical probing, open to the fullest public examination.  Having nothing to fear, or worry about, I would sue everyone in sight, starting with Reuters.

Second, it is thought-provoking that the Reuters release came on the heels of news that Brazilian authorities have some concerns with Guyanese relative to smuggling.  Before that there was the Dataram detention and his release.  The US arranges such freedom when it gets what it wants, or what corroborates its intelligence.  Then, there was that business involving the phone of a Guyanese Permanent Secretary.  It was not a landline, but a landmine.  The phone was seized, and so was the PS.  Both have since been released.  Connections or no connections, to the Reuters story, but possibly feeding in it.  Like I said, Mr. Mohamed has his hands full, and his work cut out for him, but he should not back away, once his hands are clean, as he insisted to me years ago, and since.  Once the higher ground is claimed and owned, there should be no retreating.  I wouldn’t.

Third, Mr. Mohamed is not without his friends and allies, and they are powerful, as in right to the top.  Being in as many businesses as he is, he has accumulated his share of enemies.  They, too, are powerful in political reach, which is further fueled by edgy competitive impulses.  It is whose big daddy is bigger, and who has a sweeter hand in making people remember.  Incidentally, the European Union did put out a report in recent days.  It was threaded through with the observations of its people on the ground during the 2020 elections, and the related recommendations made.  One has to do with political financing.  Big money buys plenty of political protection, and we have had those, which my fellow Americans know very well.

Recall, it was the Hon. Vice President who had a problem with allegations of gold smuggling out of Guyana: where is it?  Sez who?  Not here, Mister.  So, get out of here.  But now there is Reuters referring to big people.  The Hon. Attorney General, always good for a laff, had something or the other to offer about reform and financing and the lot, and that is that.  Strangely, the EU recommendations just surfaced; almost three years later, it expanded what was said in 2020.  I see a confluence of developments, and heroes gathering.  Then again, I also ‘duz see jumbie’.

Fourth, there is anxiety over the shore-based project and investment.  Public-private, or all private?  The record points to Exxon putting in a quarter billion.  I assert that that is not Exxon’s equity money, but 250 big ones coming from Guyana’s oil revenues.  Therefore, the public component is the foundation and cornerstone, dwarfs the private piece.  For its part, and in response to the Reuters splash, Exxon quickly dashed out its version of truth, ethics, and the American Way: all laws followed completely, all dealing aboveboard.  A fine German gentleman by the name of Paul Josef Goebbels was saying the same things, while he was roasting people alive.

Here is something to chew on: multinationals usually don’t like to share the loot, with oil majors the most voracious.  It could be that behind the prim and proper public relations (following the Reuters sensation), Exxon wants to shed Mr. Mohamed and break up the shore base baby party, with everything fully under its control.  That is, no place for locals.  To those who have a problem with this, I give this reminder.  It was Judas who kissed Jesus to betray him.  Think money, folks.

In closing, there is too much flying too close to the sun in Guyana, too much narcissism by political people, and too much that has escaped from Pandora’s Box.  And there is this parting note for the road: Secretary Blinken came, and I wonder if all this was in his toolbox, his bag of concerns.  What is America going to repair?  Who is going to be touched?  And whose head-bald or hairy-will remain in those pristine states.  “Tings nah regulah…”

(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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• devastation, GHK Lall, Guyana, H@rd Truths, sensation

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