H@RD TRUTHS BY GHK LALL – Interest charges: Jagdeo has to know, has to say 

Nov 04, 2023 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – When Guyanese want information on their oil wealth, Sir Alistair Routledge, Exxon’s Guyana President is the man that delivers.  It is neither incumbent President Ali nor former President Jagdeo, it is Exxon’s Guyana President, Mr. Routledge.  Where this oil is concerned, Alistair Routledge is Prince of Wales and Crown Prince, Guyana’s two kings-Drs. Ali and Jagdeo-have abdicated.  This matter of interest stands as a powerful example of how weak Dr. Jagdeo is.

Ask him about interest rate, interest range, or interest charges, and he transforms into a astronaut taking off for the moon.  A while back he gave Guyanese this poem about how ‘the fossil fuel environment has a hard time borrowing’ and how investors must get a return commensurate with their investment.  Thanks, Professor VP for the standard fare about oil loans, and the standard textbook stuff.  Was that really necessary?

I pose the question since His Honor, Alistair Routledge, came out and said: interest rate: no such thing.  Interest charges for Guyana, not a blind cent.  I curtsy before Sir Alistair for clearing the air, and for the added selling point that he pushed deeper into Guyanese ears: investors are bearing all the risks.  I adore partners like these, none as much as Exxon.  Since that is so, and Guyana is not being charged interest on loans, enjoy zero financing costs, then the gate is flung wide open for the Hon. Dr. Bharat Jagdeo.  Dr. Jagdeo, a former head of state, now all but president (other than in official title) of the New Guyana Oil State, is in the driver’s seat to expound brilliantly, to pontificate majestically about interest rate and interest charges being phantoms of the imagination, and extol the virtues of Exxon as a partner of incomparable credibility and decency.  A two-fisted handshake is Exxon with Guyana, and Sir Alistair is the best practitioner of that in this oil wilderness, now an Exxon frontier.

I have bad news, and as any Guyanese past the Nursery level knows, messengers are not a favored guest, more of an extinct specie in Guyana.  Whereas Mr. Routledge’s interest rate and financing cost cup overflowed with goodness for Guyanese, lo and behold, Guyana’s leading oil authority, oil commissioner, oil vocalist could not confirm anything.  I have to check with that other fine character, Dr. Nandlall, but there is a suspicious whiff of nolo contendere.  Or, perhaps, closer to home, don’t ask, don’t tell.

Sorry, bhai Barry, but it would be in keeping with simplicity and clarity to refrain from these verbal safaris into “cost bank” and what is charged and what would not be allowed.  In Guyanese vernacular: is who runnin dis country?  President Routledge or President Jagdeo?  Why all this flitting and floating around like some mosquito on the alert for Baygon with investment climate.  Nobody should have to smoke the VP out on interest rate.  The big man, Mr. Routledge seh is nah suh, therefore it should not be so.

Now, if there were no interest rates that applied, and no financing costs, because of the goodness of investors’ hearts (see why I like America?), then it astounds that this partnership gem, a true financial beauty, was kept in the closet so long.  If I were Mr. Routledge, I would have a hard rock band (and a rap group) screaming that rhapsody from every platform and pontoon in this province.  Why was there a need to keep that a secret for so long, commander? Further, I have some unsettling news for the Exxon Guyana President: experience reminds that gift horses are disagreeable to my constitution.  The thinking is that they must be bitten first, so that there are no bites heading in this direction.

Said differently, this no financing cost does not add up, falls flat when billions in expenses are held by Exxon (Routledge) and Guyana (Jagdeo) as a national security secret.  Could it be, fellow citizens that those expenses are where the interest charge (financing cost) googlies and china-man have found a cozy resting place, thanks to Exxon’s arm ball skills?  Who is padding up, what is being padded, and how much so?  It is a nice piece of public relations wizardry for Sir Alistair to broadcast with a huge smile that there are no financing costs, while expenses are sealed and secreted away.  In other words, there is no collection by Exxon for financing costs, but there are expenses that more than double what such would have been, but of which Messrs. R&J (not Nabisco nor Reynolds) have put under lock and key to keep pestiferous Guyanese away.

To Mr. Routledge, this is said quietly: business does not operate this way.  Of no financing costs for billions, investors taking risks, cost bank, a former president preferring not to commit himself by confirming the oilman’s Gospel.  Oh, and one more thing: of billions in expenses dealt with via mysteries and secrets, which could be the parking lot for financing costs that Exxon claims that it took upon itself to forgo (a word made notorious by VP Jagdeo). On this matter about no interest charged and zero financing, I recall those Crazy Eddie commercials.  Go tell that to the Marines, General Routledge.

(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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• Exxon’s Guyana President, GHK Lall, H@rd Truths, Jagdeo, Sir Alistair Routledge

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