Alistair Routledge – Guyana’s new head of state

Jun 28, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths by GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – Mr. Alistair Routledge’s official job title is President, ExxonMobil Guyana.  It is the biggest job in this country, more than a full-time challenge.  Round-the-clock it is.  Yet, by some miracle, the same Alistair Routledge has still found the time, harnessed the energy, and exhibited great fervor for Guyana to set himself up as Guyana’s real head of state.  He has empowered himself to speak authoritatively about who is doing what in Guyana.  Glenn Lall of Kaieteur News is a political aspirant.  He was slick enough to leave unsaid whether he approves or doesn’t.  A slew of questions gushed from what Mr. Routledge said about Publisher Lall and his aspirations.

How is it that this is Routledge’s or Exxon’s business?  From what relationship or foundation (or vision) does Exxon’s President make the leap that he is now Guyana’s sitting president? From where and who does Mr. Routledge get that freedom, or sense that he has it, that he gives the shortest thrift, with what now stands as his incomparable audacity?  What is he going to weigh in about next?  My right to write about Guyana’s oil and Exxon’s voracious practices that devastate Guyanese prospects?  Some Guyanese have done that, and it may be their right as citizens to do so, however skimpy and shaky my own support of that position is.  But it is not for Mr. Routledge to say.  Does Mr. Routledge see Glenn Lall in the role of “political aspirant” turned possible active political participant as a threat?  A contractually existential one, so to speak?  Is Mr. Routledge and by extension Exxon so comfortable about how the PPP Government, the PNC (and other) Opposition, and civil society are all sewed up and, in the bag, (under control) that the wish of the Americans is to keep things in Guyana that way?  And only that way for the next 30 to 40 years?  And that Glenn Lall and his reasonable and justified rage about what Exxon is doing to this country and its citizens with their oil wealth must be snuffed about before such grows in strength and becomes a real danger?  And that the same applies to any other concerned, patriotic Guyanese and group about what Exxon is doing to this country?

This is not just out of character for an oil company and its local commander on the ground.  It is incredible that Mr. Routledge could have the scrotum accessory to place this in the public arena.  Who calls the shots here?  Who decides about matters like these?  I am already disturbed by the American government, and the rest of that alphabet soup, that axis, of countries possessing so much influence in Guyana.  Now, it is simply unbelievable that a rampantly exploitative oil company could get so intimate with Guyana’s domestic issues, be they real or imagined.  What message is Mr. Routledge sending to his people, craven Guyanese betrayers, who are tasked with selling Exxon to various communities throughout Guyana?  Is it that they must stick to the PPP because of how much Exxon is going to make happen for them?  Mr. Routledge has jumped headlong and feet first into Guyana’s politics, and I ask this: how does that mesh with his corporate oil management duties and priorities?  Exxon is a partner on paper of Guyana, and the maximum my interpretation allows is for that partnership to be limited to oil exclusively.  Even with the most liberal concessions, the Exxon-Guyana oil partnership should not and must not impinge on probable domestic developments that have something to do with the political.  Such as who contests, who should be the government.  Having rather brazenly delivered his piece on “political aspirant”, it could be an automatic next step in the calculations of Exxon to speak unrestrainedly and endorse openly about which person or group should form the next government.  Thinking of this, I discern more than an Exxon-Guyana oil partnership.  What I now conclude is that there is an Exxon-PPP coalition already well in place, but only now being given public light.

Clearly, this provides confirmation about why President Ali and Guyana’s Chief Oilman Jagdeo are so mentally yoked, muscle bound, and mouth-sealed when the Exxon contract is tabled, and when material changes should be made to it.  Further, it is the starkest indication yet of who is the boss in Guyana, and who is the junior partner, one reduced to a silent and passive one, in the Exxon-PPP Government coalition.  How else to explain Mr. Routledge’s flexing his muscles publicly and taking for granted the impotence of the PPP Government and its leadership in objecting that he has gone too far? Is this what the arrival of oil now means for Guyanese?  Where the American equivalent of Belgium’s King Leopold could come here and be given free rein to replicate what destroyed a people over a hundred years ago?  Mr. Routledge could only do what he did with such assurance if the PPP Government is under his saddle.  It has been blindingly clear to more Guyanese that Exxon and Routledge have been riding the decision makers in the PPP Government anyway that is found pleasing.  Whoever is a political aspirant serves as the proof.  I am sure Hon. Bharrat Jagdeo, one of the sharpest political operators in the world, is going to say that Mr. Routledge is free to take the position that he did.  Remember his limp stance on those Exxon billboards.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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• Foundation, GHK Lall, Guyana, President, relationship

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