H@RD TRUTHS BY GHK LALL – Jagdeo shooed to upstairs pastures-policymaking

Nov 08, 2023 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – I am glad that Exxon set Guyana’s Vice President and leading oil brain, Dr. Bharat Jagdeo, straight. It was time for him to exit stage left for purposes of damage control.  It didn’t matter who the baton was passed to, just relinquish it immediately.  Indeed, matters had gotten so bad with Dr. Jagdeo’s weekly press conferences, that the people at Exxon could not take any more chances.  They just had to pull the plug.

It was okay in the book of the Americans for the Vice President to embarrass himself, but not in the context of oil and gas developments and its overall management.  The mere mention of oil or gas, and there was the name of Exxon dead center of the raucous circus that was the central characteristic of Dr. Jagdeo’s weekly performances.  In some respects, it was as if Dr. Jagdeo was competing with Dr. Ali, Guyana’s President, for best actor award.  Exxon wanted no truck with any such hijinks; those brought too much of the wrong kind of attention and disparagements to their oil and gas efforts.  He was hurting the franchise.

Now, I ask fellow citizens, including partisans and haters, the following questions.  Which American or European company would want their business handled by a national leader, no matter how collaborating he may be, who thrills to the rush of cursing out political opponents as a matter of routine?  Which businessperson would go along passively [when they hold all the cards] with a man who goes round and round the world when simple answers would work best for oil and gas inquiries?  Which smart captain of commerce would agree to be a silent party to a rambunctious leader reeking of despotism’s worst excesses when their bread-and-butter operations are the issues under scrutiny?  One who makes it his duty to wrangle with the media that he tries to suppress?

The businesspeople who are successful and enduring prefer no attention than the kind of unrelenting scrutiny that follows Dr. Jagdeo wherever he goes, whenever he opens his mouth. Ask him a question that he doesn’t like about oil and gas, and Guyana’s biggest (and loudest and sharpest) political kahuna becomes unraveled and unhinged.  His eyes narrow into ferocious slits, his lips twist into a snarl, and his nostrils twitch like someone in the throes of St Vitus Dance.  I, for one, cannot help thinking of Boris Karloff and Hammer Productions from long ago, and Freddy Kreuger of more recent flavour. Yet, I refuse to give up on the VP: the more he curses, the more I search for a cure for him.  I try to help a man fallen far.

It is not of a man mentally collapsing into a heap, with all self-control gone.  But of one whose reputational collapse spreads to others.  This is what Exxon fears, since it has its own troubles bubbling.  Knowing how fellow Americans operate, it would be most surprising if the Yanks didn’t call the Vice President aside, and gave him a few pointers.  It would center around a lecture about pulling himself up, and exercising the great self-control that is like a second skin to leaders who have no skeletons in their closets.  It goes without saying that Exxon would have done its counseling off camera, and without any minutes about such efforts.  At least, Guyana would not be billed for it, though I have the best expense category under which to place such charges.  Political Yoga.  Or hypnosis classes for high strung leadership.  Given the nervous state of Guyana’s ruling party (opposition too), it could be a profitable second business for the Americans.

Yeah, this is what a multibillion-dollar oil and gas sector expanding geometrically has come to: leaders (not just one, for emphasis) who resort to verbal brawling and character mauling of those who stand in their way.  As examples, say oil and it is like Dr. Jagdeo’s food spoil; utter a word about gas, and it is as if somebody fed him a bag of grass. To repeat an oft-stated position: this crude oil commodity and insanity (stone cold, irreversible madness) boast the same bloodlines.

With all of this in mind, and at work, the people at Exxon do not have the luxury of gambling that Dr. Jagdeo will make a turn for the better.  President Alistair Routledge is the headman, not a headcase.  He has earned his space, and he knew that it was time for Dr. Jagdeo to be kicked upstairs.  There it was, from the big man’s own mouth: from now on, it is making policy.  So, what the hell was he doing all the time outside of his two-hour weekly press riots?  Playing with paper planes, or reading the newspapers to fill up his notebook about those on whom he had to let loose at his next press catfight?

Clearly all the fun {and boatloads of truth) had gone out of the VP’s weekly press operas.  Now, he has this sinecure called making policy.  After three plus years, he has finally come to his senses, with a kick upstairs from Exxon to stop being his own worst enemy. Just so that nobody gets the wrong idea, this is not a descent into policymaking.  To borrow the immortal words of American Marine General, Oliver P. Smith at Chosin Reservoir: “Retreat hell!  We are just attacking in another direction.”  All the best with policymaking, Brother B.

(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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• Dr. Bharat Jagdeo, GHK Lall, H@rd Truths, oil brain, policymaking

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