H@rd Truths by GHK Lall – A humble invitation: show me my error

Sep 15, 2023 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – All Guyanese are my friends, even those seeing an enemy, obstacle, a voice best not heard, a pen better stilled. They are still compadres. Exxon is not held as an enemy.

Neither Exxon nor Bharrat Jagdeo nor Irfaan Ali is held as adversary, as enemy, never will be. They may rate, hate, as mortal foe, but I bear that burden willingly. It is the sum of what they do, what hurts Guyanese, that forms the nucleus of my duty to country, citizens, and strugglers on the journey of life. Country. Country. Country. First, foremost, and forever (plus a day). I give to Messrs. Darren Woods and Alistair Routledge that American super patriot, Nathan Hale: “I regret that I have but one life to give my country.” There I stand.

Now, this humble invitation for fellow Guyanese is placed in their hands, laps, bosoms. Fellows include top economists everywhere, crackerjack political scientists, seasoned journalists, analysts who actually know. Point where I am wrong. Identify for the world where what I write and say are deleterious to Guyana’s interests, dilutive of its prosperity already so elusive, so ungraspable.

I speak not of royalty nor insurance for both speak for themselves; where they are, what must be. I table simple questions: interest rate, expense disclosure, leverage, and quid pro quo. A sampling reduced to scintilla. Yes, today I pen for the educated, whisper to the ramparts occupied by Guyana’s sharpest. Enlighten me (and Guyana) how I am wrong, on the wrong track, barking at the wrong tree. The tree is about money for the people. Not I, sire.

Returns on investments are mandatory, from that I am inseparable. I stipulate that borrowing is difficult due to competition, made inordinately arduous due to prevailing, burgeoning sentiments about fossil fuel lending. What is asked for is not a vice presidential lecture, but a little number. A number anywhere from zero to double digits. With US$40-50 billion in debt, equity invested, or funds actually borrowed, the interest is a pretty penny, as in big billions. Even a rock bottom 2% annual rate and the billion-dollar barrier is breached; that is simple interest, not compounded. Whether 2% or 8% that is serious money for struggling Guyana, with so many empty-handed people. I would welcome where is the wrongdoing for asking, prioritizing, pressing for disclosure on something as rudimentary as the interest charged by Exxon. Clearly, such charges alone are larger than what is deposited in the Oil Fund. This is not merely a nice thing to know, a need-to-know; it is what must be known. It would reveal to us what kind of partner Exxon is to Guyana: benevolent or malevolent.

Similarly, expenses are in the billions, ripping off huge chunks from oil revenues. Expenses are not a miniscule miscellaneous item, but stratospheric. It is imperative, therefore, that Guyanese know more about their oil expenses, and the composition of such expenses. Are they really ours? How do the prices affixed to items reconcile with market prices painstakingly verified? Exxon should want Guyanese to know, if only for their corporate honor, reliability, credibility. Hence, there can only be the skeptical and scathing when Exxon balks, and Dr. Jagdeo gags. If this is what unleashes the attack dogs at the PPP sponsored Live in Guyana outfit, then more is illuminated than concealed. Why the need for that cesspit in the first place? Why sic them on questioners and commentators who want the exact same thing as President Ali, VP Jagdeo, the PPP Praetorian Guard, and every Guyanese? Better for Guyana, as they say.

Where am I wrong, how could I be, when seeking leadership resolve (better for Guyana), there is encountered leadership retreating (returns for investors)? Invaders, under any banner, have been exploiters and what enriches their own group from time immemorial, from Akbar the Great to Douglas MacArthur. Who is Guyana’s Benedict Arnold, and who its Ho Chi Minh? Where is that divine spark for motherland first extinguished, now a rank anachronism, prostrate before filthy lucre.

President Ali says he is for ‘One Guyana’. Most respectfully, Excellency Ali, you are not, cannot, and can never be more about One Guyana than me. Story done. VP Jagdeo and OL Norton say they are about One People, One Destiny. I make the people’s pain mine, the country’s hopes, and citizens’ destiny mine, so how about them, and why not for them first Dr. Jagdeo, Mr. Norton?

I quietly, insistently call on President, Vice President, Opposition Leader, implore them, to stop speaking in hedged language, as though afraid of running afoul of Exxon. America (Exxon) either wants this oil, or it doesn’t. We either appreciate the bargaining power that we have favoring, and which the confluence of circumstances has deposited in our hands, or we surrender and condemn ourselves to carry water for our investors, cutting wood for them, and hewing stone, as always. Our national leaders should speak with the power and confidence that is spoken here, and not as they have limited themselves to, while looking pale, pitiful, and poignant via unpersuasive productions.

Again, help me I beg of contemporaries. Educate me on where I am going, doing, wrong. No matter the level of hate, I remain a friend of Guyanese. That’s brand and badge. Show me the error of my ways, prove me wrong.

(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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• Bharrat Jagdeo, citizens, country, GHK Lall, H@rd Truths

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