The new political norm on oil

Jul 06, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths by GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – It is the most curious of developments, where Guyana’s leading political actors are happiest speaking about everything else, but oil.  On the nation’s great oil bonanza, the government and opposition have something in common, and it is revealing.  They are increasingly exhibiting a marked preference for not being asked, not having to say, anything about oil.  The national oil patrimony is the key to so much, could be if husbanded right, and no national leader wants to invest the time and astuteness to address inquiries and issues about this great endowment.  They bask in the lush statistics, revel in the global attention that the oil brings, capitalize on the doors opened due to this wealth but engage in enforced dumbness, even studious daftness, where the oil is concerned.  This is a first element of the political oil norm.

I was amazed at President Ali, a leader who is the beneficiary of the interest of other countries that seek a piece of Guyana’s oil pie and flatters him as to his importance.  The president’s head is pumped up and it is because of this oil.  Take away the oil wealth, and Excellency Ali is nothing but the equivalent of another colored, barefooted Third World with his hand outstretched with little standing in their considerations.  I hate to bring him down to earth, but it is because of Guyana ‘s oil, and not any special talent of his, that he is the toast of capitals around the world.  Remove the national oil wealth, and President Ali is reduced to toast.  Take a number, take a seat at the back, and take a magazine form the table, for it will take a while before a junior official will be available.  Yet, the same commodity that converts this country to a mandatory destination, a place for lucrative investment opportunities, is the last thing that either Guyana’s head of state, or Guyana’s head oilman, or Guyana’s opposition headman, wish to be reminded about, or speak.  This is a second component of the local political oil norm.

If left to his own devices, Excellency Ali would wax majestically (at least he believes so) about what is mundane, comparatively speaking.  There is nothing that could compare in today’s Guyana to the national oil wealth, but there is the main man delighting in delivering discourses on sugar (a failure), coconut (a starter) and shrimp and prawns (a floater and a teaser).  It is as if the oil doesn’t exist, is still a wish that hasn’t materialized.  The president in eel like fashion slips away from oil questions and refers media questioners to the Hon Vice President, Dr. Bharrat ‘No Old Oil Questions’ Jagdeo.  Say not a word about oil, ask not a question about oil, of Big Oil Brahmin Bharrat, and he is like a pig in a dumpsite.  It is Christmas wrapped in Thanksgiving for him every Thursday.  Perhaps, it is why he settled for his press battles (and babbles) on Thursdays.  Oil is new to Guyana, and Professor Jagdeo is treating it, as though every Guyanese is a Nobel prize winner re oil knowledge.  It is my belief that two things are at work with Jagdeo’s oil antics.  The first is that he doesn’t know and believes that blustering is the best cover for his lack of depth.  The second is that the less that Exxon wants Guyanese to know about its oil depredations, the more that the Vice President of Oil, like the Guyana president, complies so as not to upset the Americans.  It is why they tiptoe and tie themselves into knots when oil questions are raised.  They become comic book warriors against Guyanese when oil is tabled.  VP Jagdeo’s scheme is to soak up considerable time attacking his imagined media adversaries and denigrating his political enemies.  He thinks that both pull the wool over the eyes of Guyanese.  This is the third aspect of the new political oil norm.

For his part, the third national leader, Opposition strongman, Mr. Aubrey Norton, dabbles in oil at his own pace and to his own taste.  Like his two loud nemeses across the littered political aisle, Norton is a study in careful edging away when oil is the matter at hand.  He has developed his own language skills to tame the oil beast that just wouldn’t go away, would not be silenced.  It is interesting how Guyana’s oil has become a political third rail for local political bigwigs.  In the manner of electrical third rails, there is the mortal fear by all political leaders of going too near to oil, saying too much about it, and giving away too much of the real deals with the oil wealth of the Guyanese people.  My sense is that they touch it, and they are barbequed into the unrecognizable.  Is this not what doctors Ali, Jagdeo, and Norton have all exhibited in how they approach and handle oil matters?  Alistair the Enforcer is always on the job.  He is waiting for any of Guyana’s top dogs to bark out of turn, to expose the sinister presence of Exxon in Guyana’s now murky oil waters.  It is slick stuff, a huge, thick one.  This is the fourth norm of the new local political oil norm.

(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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• GHK Lall, hard truths, inquiries, patrimony, political

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