Investors vs. Inhabitants

Oct 19, 2023 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Interesting the people that Guyana’s leaders prioritise. Intriguing is what hardly ever passes their lips, worthy of their passions, makes them appear powerful in their convictions. First, Vice President Jagdeo jumped out of his skin, and rushed to the front, to reassure his main constituency, and now President Ali has made no bones about where his heart lies. For both men, Investors feature most prominently.

It would be healthy if Jagdeo and Ali spent a fraction of their time and energies to instill some confidence in those who form the most important constituency of all, the inhabitants of Guyana. But that they wouldn’t do, from that they shrink. In the tumultuous aftermath of Judge Sandil Kissoon’s ruling on the provision of a full parent company guarantee by ExxonMobil, it was Vice President Jagdeo who raced out with reassurances to investors. He spoke of troubling “murky waters” and “precedents” for the benefit of foreign investors. In his haste to calm foreign investors, Jagdeo went into overdrive. The PPPC Government will appeal, which led that always willing solider, Attorney General Nandall to wage war against the Guyanese people. Whatever it took, whatever bridge and relationship had to be blown up, then it is a small price for the PPPC Government to pay to keep foreign investors happy. In other words, under no circumstances must these foreigners be made to harbor second thoughts about investing in Guyana. Following Judge Kissoon’s ruling, this became glaring, even blinding: whatever Jagdeo, Ali, and Nandlall had to do, they were going to get it done. Protect the happiness of foreign investors by any means, even if they come out looking cheap and squalid.

Whoever has to be attacked will be attacked. Whoever has to be runover or smeared or diminished, that’s too bad. It is simply collateral damage, the price of staying in the favour of foreigners, which means staying in power. Conspicuously, there is little of the same passion, hardly any identical conviction, from Jagdeo and President Ali, when the prosperity of inhabitants (Guyanese) is involved. Approximately half of Guyana is struggling to keep their heads above water, economically speaking, and the people they put into office, refuse to throw them even a verbal lifeline, give them some hope. To do so would consign foreign investors to secondary consideration, and that would never be satisfactory to anybody. There is the PPPC Government, which prefers not to take any chances with its hold on power, and there are the foreign investors, who know their own power, and the hold they have over Jagdeo and President Ali.

It is President Ali himself, who ran amok in his hurry to smother Donald Ramotar, a former president, and send the right signals to those he called “sophisticated investors.” Guyana must be found dependable, which we translate as meaning that any garbage or offal can be dumped here, and it is alright in the name of foreign investment. Investors sophisticated by every standard, and always foreign, come first, and ignorant Guyanese must recognise that, and play along accordingly. Whatever it is that has to be done to please investors, it will be done. Renegotiation is high on the list of issues that would greatly displease sophisticated foreign investors. Therefore, that subject must never be raised in Guyana. Therefore, that line about renegotiation will never be crossed. Therefore, that push for renegotiation must never be allowed to be.

Sophisticated investors will be terribly unhappy and, as Vice President Jagdeo once said, “investors spook easily.” Inhabitants of Guyana lack energy, go hungry, live in perpetual agony, and President Ali and Vice President Jagdeo can only think of, speak about, and summon intense passions to concentrate on investors, foreign and sophisticated. Both president and vice president drop everything, and gallop forward to sing lullabies to settle the nerves of spooky sophisticated investors. This is how much Guyana’s inhabitants count for Ali and Jagdeo when investors are around. The prosperity of investors comes first, while hungry local inhabitants living in poverty are left in hopelessness and darkness. In the calculations of Ali and Jagdeo, there are only investors. Inhabitants of Guyana be damned, they must figure out for themselves how to survive.

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Attorney General, Editorial, ExxonMobil, Jagdeo, Nandall, Vice President

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