Government – the way it is, should not be

Apr 14, 2024 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Government of the people, for the people, by the people. It is revealing how this promise has become twisted in Guyana in the hands of government. The PPPC Government has given itself a cloak of authority that is beyond the mandate that any election can bestow. The ascension to national power, through victory at the polls, is now a license for the PPPC Government to decline into depraved indifference as to its sacred obligations to the people.

The government says that it has the power to decide. We agree, but only on the condition that it is not exclusive, that decisions are not what run counter to the welfare of citizens. Government figures insist that it has the power to decide what to share and what to bury in deep secrecy. The sharing has been minimal and excludes the components of national governance that must be public because citizens must know. On those mandatory elements, no government should have a monopoly. There is an expanding oil sector, representing upwards of a trillion American dollars in promise, the kind of quality existence that our ancestors dreamed of, but never had the opportunity to taste. Anybody at any level who persists with the thinking that oil must be managed secretly, its bigger developments concealed, is lining for the fool of the year award.

Guyanese must know and they put people in power to lookout for them, tell them what they need to know, and always be about what is in their best interests. The people elected must use the power given to them to safeguard Guyana in every aspect of this country’s new era of oil. The PPPC Government has failed abjectly at this duty. It then rubs salt into local wounds by rushing in shameless traitorous gutlessness to pick up the cudgels for ExxonMobil and others, and dangerously expose Guyanese in doing so. We point to where the PPPC Government is for guaranteed coverage for this country’s protection should a big oil spill ever occur at the offshore oil platforms. The government is against the Guyanese people and is prostituting itself for the benefit of ExxonMobil. In the matter of a security blanket for Guyana in the event of an oil spill, the PPPC Government has made itself into a better partner for ExxonMobil than Hess Corporation and CNOOC. When the fiercest fight for Guyanese is demanded of the government and its leaders, there are only the worst cowards racing to ExxonMobil’s side, leaving citizens abandoned and exposed.

Under no circumstances, by not even the most charitable interpretation, could what the PPPC Government is doing be thought of as being for the Guyanese people. Groveling at ExxonMobil’s feet, positioning for political favors of the leading people of the company is not representing Guyanese interests. It is about horribly misusing the power granted by the people to the government to secure the ambitions of its leaders. Even the most unlettered in Guyana can see this, has arrived at the only conclusion left. Any decision, any action, that sacrifices the safety of the people, and the economic destiny that is theirs, is about political reward. It is cozying up to ExxonMobil to ensure that leaders stay in power. They have made up their minds: challenging ExxonMobil, fighting on behalf of Guyanese, is the policy of a loser. This is why the government comes up with its traitor’s kiss: it reserves the right to decide what to share, what to hold back. On some other matters, we may force ourselves to go along, but not on this oil.

Oil is too big and tempting. It has made better leaders than Guyana betray their own people. Things have gotten so twisted locally that many with great responsibility in today’s government have permanently distanced themselves from straight talking and straight dealing. They can’t anymore, so they settle for either abuse or half truths or secrets. The ugly story of Guyana’s oil is that this great wealth is being used to disempower the people. Guyanese had better see the light. When the PPPC Government stands as nakedly as it does for ExxonMobil on the issue of the fullest protection, citizens now live with a criminally irresponsible entity.

decline, Editorial, Government, Guyana, PPPC

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