H@RD TRUTHS BY GHK LALL – There has to be one or two or three

Jan 31, 2024 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

Kaieteur News – It is my belief that there has to be at least one or two or three Guyanese men and women in the PPP parliamentary membership, who harbour some level of misgiving that this oil wealth of the people is being mismanaged. It could be any combination of the three, with the level of personal disturbance ranging from mild apprehension to moderate disappointment to grave doubts.

GHK Lall

I couldn’t accept, never believe, that all of the parliamentary members of the PPP are so far gone in their lack of principle, their absence of a moral map, their void regarding simple honesty that they see nothing wrong with how the oil is overseen. There has to be half of a handful of PPP parliamentarians who are troubled by the stewardship of the nation’s oil in some of its major areas. Especially those that have some relationship to money for the national treasury. The alpha and omega of oil is money, what goes to the participating oil contractor scum operators, scum partners, and what comes into the coffers of the host nation. Already in motion is an economic disaster that is a national tragedy in waiting.

Who is there in Guyana that is going to tell me that not a single PPP parliamentarian has no issue with a tax filing being challenged? By the PPP Government standing shoulder to shoulder with Exxon or a judicial ruling on the provision of a full parent company guarantee to protect the people of Guyana, should there be what is possible, what should be most feared. Could there not be one or a few fingers representing PPP parliamentarians who are acutely (even marginally) distressed over how their government took the side of Exxon and fought against the welfare-the environmental safety, economic security, and way of life-of the Guyanese people (and their neighbors)? I cannot subscribe to any such thinking. And how about the same small number of PPP men and women not exasperated and appalled and upset that even the production of the meager US$2B parent guarantee document is now a source of pushback, dispute, and corporate silence, perverseness, and slickness. Exxon has Guyanese in the proverbial Creole ‘crab barrel’. We all know what the inhabitants do to each other there. I nod in the direction of the honourable Vice President, Dr. Jagdeo. If Exxon does not have that, then what and when, if ever, will it be about what protects Guyanese? Coloured people’s lives and existence do have some value, I remind Exxon’s Mr. Routledge. Brethren in the PPP should take note.

It is time to get personal, specific with names named. Not to embarrass, but in my eternal probing for some sanitizing light with this oil, and the people closest to it. Attorney General, Anil Nandlall possesses enough depth of intellect to grasp that the entire stewardship of this oil is now in tatters, heavily skewed in the direction of everything that favours Exxon’s interests, Exxon’s profitability. He can redeem himself, and he knows how. The Hon. Minister of Social Protection, Dr. Vindya Persaud, has the foundations that feed her discernments of the tawdriness and putridity that now characterize the government’s overseership of this oil wealth. The circling and backpedaling and abuse and fouls that are now inseparable from this patrimony. Though I have had justified cause to be caustic at Minister Persaud, I firmly believe that she knows right from wrong, political heritage properly considered. The PNC gifted Guyanese a horrendous oil contract; the PPP now gores Guyanese, through perpetuating all that is harrowing about it. Minister Persaud has a choice: she can sit, bow her head, and absorb the battering from above. Guyanese know who, and it is not from one. I advance hesitantly to the edge, and identify my fellow worshipper, Minister Rodrigues, and take a risk with Minister Benn. What is paramount? Party or the people? The rest I give the shortest thrift.

Somewhere in the breast of the PPP Government, and its leading faces, there ought to be, must be, a smattering of those with a spark of genuine patriotism. What Exxon is lynching Guyanese with (and for, and who they use as willing allies) has to be both crime and curse. They could not have deteriorated so critically that there is not a speck of compassion for their own people. And even if they did, there has to be some trickle and prick of conscience that what Exxon is doing here, and being allowed to get away with, is neither Catholic, nor dharmic, nor Islamic. The hell I say that it is not. Because what Exxon is piling upon Guyanese is nothing short of the Satanic in the totality of the worst demonic attributes and practices.

Which Guyanese with one strand of honesty left in him or her could be so crass and craven, as to uphold and applaud what this apology, this disgrace, of an oil partner has become for this nation? Name me the Guyanese that is so short of personal honour and self-respect that he or she sees positives, the inspiring, for Guyanese who still harbour hope. Whether one or two or more in the ranks of PPP parliamentarians, they know what birthright and destiny demands of them. Can they? Will they?

(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.)