Corruption makes Exxon look worse than it is

Jul 30, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – Corruption makes Exxon look bad.  Chronic corruption makes Exxon look even worse than it is (the ‘wussest’) in the eyes of Guyanese.  All the horrors that could be laid on the head of Exxon are plunked down right there.  The irony is that it is not Exxon’s fancy footwork and hanky-panky that attracts the corruption curse on its head.  It is the breathtaking corruption-incomparable, unbelievable, and tangible-of the men and women in the PPP Government that drags America’s pride and glory, Exxon, into the gutter and the sewer.

Corruption on the gargantuan scale practised by the PPP Government is neither victimless nor bloodless; it is not an abstraction, not somebody else’s problem. It is the public incest of the PPP Government and the devastations inflicted on Guyanese, making it their costly problem that can’t be concealed.  It is too much to deny, what no one can explain.  America has made vast PPP Government corruption its problem.

Fear not.  I cry not for Exxon, considering its depredations of the Guyanese patrimony, the hemorrhaging of the promise of the Guyanese people. Certainly, 2% and 50:50 profit sharing after clever accounting arrangements still has some cash inflows to lift economically strapped Guyanese away from where they are.  Ah, that’s where the trouble begins, and it is a calamity that has grown into a crisis.  Say the word cash, and almost all the men and women in the PPP (‘guvment and paaty’) go crazy.  A feeding frenzy it is. Guyanese look for food, the PPP gives them a brick. Infrastructure.  Exxon has its secret accounting system (world class, the man assures the natives), and the PPP Government has infrastructure steel and sand.  If ever there was snake in a Savile Row suit that’s it. Made in Guyana, and the label reads ‘PPP Infrastructure Custom Tailors.’ When a mask is needed for unimagined thievery, infrastructure is the name of the game.  Over half of the record national budget approved for infrastructure, and half of it is snatched by corruption. Just like that, one huff, a big puff, and a lot of cash stuff is gone.  The boys and girls in the PPP Government smirked and shrugged.  He who alleges, must advance with his associates. They are called evidence, proof.  The United States government was only too glad to oblige.

Thirty months of peeping and putting the pieces of corruption together and by the time the US Treasury was done (it is now beginning), there was the proof: a corruption network.  ‘Wrang ting nah gah ownah.’  For the first time in living memory, the PPP couldn’t point to the PNC, and attach that corruption network to it.  The symphony is unfinished.  For, I hear my cousins (there are whispers of Caucasian strains going way back) speaking of that other plank of evidence that can’t be swept under the carpet: government officials.  Three times, those two damning words: government officials winged their way across the world.  It cannot be PNC government officials.  It can’t be handpicked public servants alone, those who participate in the festive programmes.  Government officials also mean elected politicians who elected to help themselves to the li’l oil money. These are the kind of friends, corrupt PPP Government officials, of which Exxon is so proud.  More than one big man in the Exxon-led consortium has publicly said so, and repeatedly. The Guyana Government is the best of the best.  Friends that give guarantees. Friends that look out for spooky investors. I have a message for the big fish at Exxon: tell that to OFAC. I think the US Treasury made a mistake, the small matter of a typo, a misplaced vowel: the ‘a’ in OFAC should be replaced by a ‘u.’ Now who ‘ah yuh cussin’ today?  Who is lowlife now?  Who is expert and naysayer now, skipper chief?  Who is targeted to be reviled now, ‘daktah’ oil?

For the edification of my dear American friend Alistair, here is a sliver of local wisdom.  When ‘dese bannas teef’ de oil money, the money from Exxon takes on a ghastly appearance.  What is deposited looks horrible, feels terrible.  Because the people don’t taste it.  Pressure for Exxon to give more.  How much more should come, because of how much has been swindled under the shield of infrastructure.  When the PPP steals, Exxon gets scorched. Think about that, Mr. Routledge.  Now think about this fellow Guyanese: think that America gives a damn about some corrupt coloured people stealing billions?  No!  America is concerned about their own people (investors) and the stability needed on land to help them prosper.  Unhappy people are unstable people.  Friendly investment climate is only one leg, in a three-legged jackass.  And an unfriendly environment could result in a series of kicks from the other legs.  Fix the problem (corruption) and fix the financial system to work as it should.

On behalf of the PPP Government, it is my privilege to make this terse submission: respect for the rule of law and order.  Whose law?  And by whose orders?  Then, somebody in the friendly audit office must explain to the world just how one minister has almost two dozen real estate holdings.  How a big fish has investments in what the tender board has given the nod?  Will anybody from audit office to Office of the President, OPM, OVP expound on the record of almost all PPP Government ministers being the beneficial owners of unexplained wealth?  I was imprudent enough to call two names and assert that they are clean.  Unexplained wealth put an end to that deliberation.  The PPP Government princes and princesses live large; the poor peasants of Guyana live like dogs.  Not the Westminster Dog Show variety, Mr. Routledge.  The stray dog kinds that multiply and roam restlessly across Guyana.  What the PPP grabs and gifts itself is what makes Exxon look bad, real baad.  Houston, there is a problem.  Looking higher and farther, Washington, this is a big problem.

(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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• chronic, corruption, Exxon, Guyanese, Head

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