Pres. Ali – save breath sir; please cease insulting Guyanese 

Apr 11, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths by GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – I feel terrible for President Ali.  He really believes that he stands as a credible figure before Guyanese; diehards and other in that fanatical breed see him as believable.  Most Guyanese, including his own, now views him as a figure of pity.  The latest confirmation from His Excellency is that his government will be adopting a ‘no nonsense’ approach to contract management.

Respectfully, Mr. President, please cease and desist with this nonsense.  Guyanese have heard this before in different forms and words from different PPP leaders and ministers and look where they are.  My humble recommendation to the unhearing national leader is to save his breath, discontinue wasting the time and patience of Guyanese.  Most of all, Excellency Ali ought to know that he insults Guyanese when he comes up with these white rabbit about ‘no nonsense’ approach to contract management.  Here is a fast moving history of what has been said before, heard before, read before, and believed before.  The game is up, Dr. President.  Get another gig.

I recall the Right Hon. Minister, Archbishop Edghill clearing the bushes in wide arcs with his version of a ‘no nonsense’ approach to contract management.  He worked that magic with roads and a while back with the airport expansion project.  In my words, there were the equivalents of ‘riot acts’ and ‘impatience’ and ‘zero tolerance’ and ‘peeple tink de guvment stupid’ and so on and so forth.  I do my spiritual duty: Hon Minister, go back and read scripture.  Stick to chuch. Pray for some grace. The kinds lacking for a long time. He knows what I mean, and he should know that I know enough.  For where are we with one public works project after another, despite the helpful efforts of auditors who remind of those Japanese stone statues.  To come full circle, I have heard the Mighty Ali (in his head, Almighty Ali) rage royally about who must deliver, and how his government is not going to take it anymore.

Today, he and his PPP cabal in government look even more impotent, of more jeering material. I search internally and think of the UN people with their tough questions, and that dirty word that starts with a ‘c.’  I am positive that big PPP Government leaders went that far in the alphabet, and that deep into the dictionary.  Whether they did or not is irrelevant, for Guyana is in the same way and the backs of Guyanese taxpayers bear the scars.  Plus, their stomachs tighten with the pangs from the monies not coming their way because the billions have been awarded to the friends and families of the government.  Infrastructure is the money pool that is infested with white-collar crimes, which the president had to have known.  Now he talks of ‘no nonsense’ approach to contract management. He and his people are the leading excuse makers, diluters, when Guyanese rail about corruption.  If corruption was/is so negligible, boss, why the need for ‘no nonsense’ action?

If President Ali is seriously serious, and not about the nonsense that he preens so effortlessly nowadays, then a ‘no nonsense’ approach to contract management must start at the tender boards, national and regional.  Who gets, why they get, how they could get, and why others are not getting.  Go ahead, Dr. Excellency, make the day of honest, conscientious Guyanese.  Give me some material to work with, and I gat yuh bak. But not these leadership pieties that is the regular trump up, cook-up, and stickup.

Here is another one for my beloved and revered President Ali (that he is, he is I assure and publicly admit). The Hon Vice President Jagdeo has flashed boldly and brightly about “better contract management” with this oil.  If that smells of having some blood relationship to President Ali’s ‘no nonsense’ regime and culture, pat self on the back.  These chaps are full of…of, ahem, the soft stuff.  I ponder whether the erudite VP made a mistake: he may have meant mastectomy, but management slipped out. Because that is precisely what is now his standard of better contract management.  He has removed not one breast of hope, but both, as far as Guyanese are concerned.  There is neither form nor shape to his efforts.  Nor is there any mother’s milk coming for the most vulnerable Guyanese from his better contract management efforts.  What a character!  What a charming fellow!  What a man who, like Excellency Ali, is all thunder and lightning, but is more parched than the drought stricken interior when a few sweet little raindrops are needed.  For emphasis: mere raindrops from this oil, and not quite the unlimited deluges from rainstorms.

Putting all this on the drawing board, this is my first and last mile run.  Corruption is drowning the Guyana population.  Corruption starts with budget provisions.  Corruption soars with contract award decisions. Corruption comes home to celebrate with contract performance.  The first stop is Freedom House. State House knows this, may even be too close to such for comfort.  I saw a huge commercial building on the East Bank Demerara for the first time, and a name came up as the silent partner.  I know of some others before, and another big name repeated in the conclusions.  I leave Guyanese brighter than I can ever be fuh pick sense outta nonsense.

(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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• confirmation, GHK Lall, Guyanese, hard truths, management

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