For or against Guyanese transparency, anybody 

Apr 07, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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H@rd Truths by GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – President Ali and Vice President Jagdeo warble at loud volumes about how much they are for Guyanese.  Both leaders with almost unparalleled power in their hands insist that the PPP Government, and they themselves, are about transparency.  Now there is this kick in gut wakeup call.  The PPP Government that is so committed to transparency went secretly to the CCJ to challenge a Guyana Court of Appeal ruling and join on the side of ExxonMobil to defeat the Guyanese people.  The issue is neither ordinary nor negligible; it is of an unlimited parent company guarantee for this country in the event of a disastrous oil spill at the company’s offshore operations.  Is this move to the CCJ on stealthy feet, like the proverbial thief in the night, an act of transparency from a government that swears to transparency?  Or is it the kind of conduct that is more commonly associated with a gangster group, one that thrives in dark, covert dens?

In regular life, there is shunning dealing with anyone-any neighbour, any friend, any relation, any colleague, any citizen – who has a marked tendency towards the unsavory.  People of principle shrink from association with those who are transparent in how they are unscrupulous.  What applies to we, the people, applies with the same force to governments.  The PPP Government has now accumulated an outstanding record for secret ambitions, secret visions, and secret strategies.  The approach to the CCJ is the latest and is preceded with all those documents of national significance that have been squirreled away from the eyes of Guyanese.  I ask again: what is there to fear?  Who is there to protect?  What is it that must be covered up by any means?  I look at the Hon Attorney General, Mr. Mohabir Anil Nandlall, senior counselor, senior lawmaker, and senior practitioner of the artifices of the PPP Government.  I turn my eyes away quickly.  How does a man of the construction of Mr. Nandlall (an honorary degree should be on the way) permit himself to be a party to the clandestine, and the nocturnal?  There are creatures of the light and creatures of the night.  To Mr. Nandlall, this brother, I give this free counsel: very little light is left when actions like the one before the CCJ have fingerprints.

The president is a lost cause on transparency, and the maturity and sobriety that go with such.  The Vice President thinks of himself as an authority on all things, but what of credibility?  What of what is trustworthy?  Not by my definition.  But by the expectation of the Guyanese people.  Guyanese elected a government to be by their side, lead the charge for them.  What Guyanese have received, in contrast, is a cowardly cur in the PPP Government that yaps in piteous advocacy before the CCJ over what could destroy more than Guyana’s wealth, more than national promise, more than Guyanese hope.  The PPP Government, with AG Nandlall as a lead spear carrier, takes the Exxon line in defiance of all that is national, and with what could irreparably damage the destiny of citizens of Guyana.  If there is anything more subversive than what the PPP Government is doing, I want to know.  If there is any act that matches in treachery what is being inflicted by this expanse of feeble leaders before the bullhorn and in parliament, then of that I confess to current ignorance.

My unpriced advice to the government-Ali, Jagdeo, Nandlall-is that since this CCJ move beside Exxon was nothing but mandatory, then there was neither need nor basis for going forward with it under a thick screen of thicker secrecy.  Is advocacy pornography?  Why does defending a so-called principle, contractual or legal or individual, degenerate into the darkness of this diabolical cleverness? For how long was this snakelike slither to the CCJ expected to stay hidden?  Fight in the light for Exxon and its profit enhancing priorities, if that it all that the PPP Government cares about.  Since the Ali, Jagdeo, Nandlall triumvirate is so enamored of the purity and power of their defence of Exxon’s depraved indifference, then the sanitation, ventilation, and disinfectant of sunlight must be what is basked in, absorbed. Instead, they look mildewed and worm infested, introduce a ratty and rancid smell, and decay at accelerating rates.  Governments defend their people to the death.  National governments and national leaders do not link arms with the double-crosser that Guyana has for a partner in Exxon. I ask this of my fellow citizens, real patriots only: who today stands as representative of what is traitorous to Guyanese interests?  Recall and sift through the unending series of appeasements of a plundering Exxon, of savaging the safety of citizens, and of government selling its dignity and integrity for the chamber pot of power.  The pot stinks.  The PPP Government stinks.  “Laak ah sed, de peeple” stink so much that I don’t want even to mention their names anymore.  Look how they damage the dreams of Guyanese, wreck their aspirations.  This is not self-determination.  This is self-enslavement.

It is now beyond the last phrase of any argument that the Guyanese people have been abandoned by Guyanese leaders and left to the mercy of American and Chinese, European and Indian wolves.  Guyanese must start thinking of new ways to overcome them all.

(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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• CCJ, covert, ExxonMobil, GHK Lall, Guyanese

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