Jagdeo – from economist to English Language spinner to political entertainer

Apr 21, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths by GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – The $865M Tepui pump station contract award has brought out another silky and slippery side of the greatest son of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo.  Please don’t embarrass me by asking the greatest in what respect.  But there he was, the economist, now a picky and cautious English Language teacher educating the natives and ‘lowlifes’ of Guyana in the sophistications of the mother tongue.  It is the type of spoilage that flows from deep inside of a wicked stepmother.  The economist is now impressing himself that he is a man astute in the finer points of English syntactical sophistry, when all he succeeds in doing is emphasizing the cheap and graceless entertainer that he has become.

Listen to Vice President Jagdeo in his most dazzling House of Commons flourish: “it didn’t say breach, however it pointed out the application for evaluation criteria; an evaluation criterion that was outlined in the bid that there was not a perfect kind of application or in this case, the bid’s criteria” (“Jagdeo blames the evaluation team for handing ‘Critic’ the $865M pump station contract”, KN April 19, 2024).  In the beginning, I thought that I heard the symphonic dedicated to linguistics acrobatics; as clearer light dawned, that composition of Jagdeo’s is the prelude to Guyana’s funeral march.  Chopin, it is not.  I trust that all Guyanese now appreciate when I have said repeatedly that as Vice President, it is the best national title and recognition that could have been awarded this grand spawn from the bowels of this diseased land.

Of course, “it didn’t say breach” but if it was not a disruption and departure from the standing evaluation criteria, then what was it, Mistah Jags?  And what is disruption and departure, if not a violation, a rupture, a rent in the evaluation criteria garment and, in effect, nothing but a breach, “Daktah Jaggy”?  These are the jagged edges, the jagging, zigzagging, gagging paths which the Hon. Vice President has made his special reserve.  Oh, but this smartest of smart Guyanese man was just warming up.

“There was not a perfect kind of application”, says this hallowed servant of the Guyanese people.  Thank you, but I will take the cruelest of prison wardens, the worst that the gates of hell could unleash and lay at the threshold.  I could deal with all of that, just as I handle with the most delicate of touches this most fragile child that pretends to be a man for Guyanese.  A man of honour, a man of truth, a man of clarity and comprehensive cogency.  Look at what he has put his tortured mind to work for, to slice and dice and then smooth over.  For the enlightenment of this most soggy and tricky of local presences, I tender this gift free of any consideration.  If it was “not a perfect kind of application”, then it was less than perfect, hence, imperfect.  Therefore, whether the lovely loyalists in the Public Procurement Commission used “breach” or not, I tender (not a pun) that what occurred represents a breach.  Several breaches.  Egregious breaches.  Inexplicable breaches.  I could agree with “Daktah Jag” that the word “breach” was missing, for what happened was more than a breach.  It was and is a crime.  What is tantamount to a Class One white-collar felony.

The evaluation committee must have been composed of the same kind of minds that were around that US$214 million Exxon audit, which was miraculously rejigged to US$3 million.  Somebody in Guyana is pushing hard for poor, simple fellows (like me) to accept that as accidental and unpremeditated and untouched by political hands.  I wonder if Bharrat Jagdeo knows anyone who meets that criterion.  From Exxon audit amount to evaluation criteria managers, the PPP Government has developed the extraordinary skill of identifying a rare kind of Guyanese worker who knows just what fits the bill, what delivers to the satisfaction of their wily, expectant, commanding political masters.  If we all had willing and devoted helpers like those in the PPP Government’s handpicked machinery, there would be no need to be concerned about anything.  There are always soldiers running in front to do the kinds of jobs needed, including suicide missions and, better still, take silent ownership of the consequences.

Now, I make it my duty to inform Excellency Ali (probably an oxymoron), Vice President Jagdeo (the most suitable title), and Attorney General Nandlall (general over the practice of what), and their likeminded boosters: there is stink and “dutty”.  Then, there is what is slimy and sleazy and encompasses all that deathly sickly about this nasty and grimy country.  Okay, it wasn’t called a breach, nor was it not a perfect kind of application of criteria, but that contract award possessed all the stuff of the moral and intellectual (and leadership) sewer that Guyana is so proudly about today.  I leave with another gift – time worn but timeless – for all of my fellow citizens: “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive” (Sir Walter Scott, Marmion).  Note carefully: the tangled web comes after deceiving is the first practice.

(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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• entertainer, GHK Lall, hard truths, political, Vice President Jagdeo

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