Out with the secret Jagdeo 

Aug 16, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – I need help.  Scratch that, please.  It is Guyana’s chief policymaker, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo who needs serious help.  I suggest a huge slug of High Wine instead of any antibiotics or multivitamins, for a start.  Dr. Jagdeo must decide what is the best diagnosis and prescription for himself.  Physician, heal thine own self.  Surgeon Jagdeo, excise or exorcise thy self, dear fellow countryman of mine.  The nation’s chief oil wrestler must make up his mind: he has a choice.  Be a conjurer of fantasies, or a conspirator of Exxon, or a conniver of an extraordinary order.  Jagdeo, being the unprecedented champ that he is, can be all three at once, if that is what pleases him.  What’s up with this interest rate business charged by Exxon, Babu Bharrat?  It is unbelievable that such a simple aspect of regular business could cause a former president so much trouble to get straight.

First, the vice president of oil said that there is a cost to capital.  I salute the man.  Bravo, cheerio, and tallyho for getting that one right.  Whether from loans, or return on equity, Exxon is entitled to some money in its pocket.  I am not messing with that brilliance, what is unchallengeable from the unimaginable.  Simply stated, any interest rate charged is the cost of using other people’s money.  I am proud of myself and my learned friend, Dr. Jagdeo, that there is something on which we agree.  Now, he had to go and spoil things, blow out the bucket bottom.  On each occasion that I drop my guard and fool myself into thinking that there is some good in this guy Jagdeo, he does something to make me regret the error of my judgment.  The latest from Guyana’s oil manager-fabricator is that there is no interest rate.  Zero.  A big, fat 0.  Let’s have that one more time for surety’s sake: Exxon is not charging the cost bank any interest.  Truth be told, this is why I have such regard for this great leader Bharrat Jagdeo.  Please don’t question me and put me on the spot by asking if that regard is high, medium, or low.  Or not at all.  We could all do without any more quarreling and cursing from this great, unreconstructed North Korean-East German-Bulgarian commie pretending to be a down home, democratic Guyanese.  If it is not the cost bank being charged hundreds of millions of US, then, where else?  What accounting convention (sleight of hand) is Exxon using to lump its equity/interest charges under? Out with the secret, Bharrat; c’mon, come clean with Guyanese.  This is my response, the kind one: Exxon is not that generous. Not when it can invest/lend those billions anywhere and reap a bumper harvest. No way Exxon loves Guyana so much. Not the Exxon that Guyanese know.  Not in a year of Christmases every single day.

Exxon not charging Guyana is the Titanic picking a fight with that iceberg and still sailing serenely forward.  Exxon not taking out hundreds of millions in interest charges for its equity invested (Sir Alistair himself said so) is tantamount to a snowstorm of whiteout conditions in the Sahara. Or over Georgetown.  Exxon is all steel when the issue of renegotiation of its exploitative contract is tabled, not even for a measly one percent more in royalty, but it is considerate enough to gift Guyana all those millions in interest foregone, out of the sweetness of its loving capitalist heart. Exxon is so low as to charge Guyana a few dollars for bungee jumping, yoga dancing, and car washing, but millions upon millions (Uncle Sam) is on the house.  Anytime Exxon decides to get into the ice cream business, I am signing upright now to be a lifetime customer. Routledge and Woods have a conniption fit with audit findings involving a mere US$214M, but they have no hang-ups with letting go of what is easily a half billion American moolah annually just like that, and because Jagdeo say it is so.  How does he come up with mysteries like these?  Is he allowing somebody to make a fool of him, which he then passes on that favor to gullible Guyanese?  I don’t think so; maybe with somebody else, but not Jagdeo.  Somebody is suffering from a permanent hangover, or a case of induced myopia, around here, and I know it is not me.  I am heading for the underground bomb shelters.  The world is coming to an end, and this has nothing to do with any Bible or other sacred book.  From whom does Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo get these concoctions that would reduce an imbecile to tears, and which have all the elements of pure comedy?  If ever I want to take deep dive into the nearest gutter, I am asking to be reincarnated to the vice presidency of Guyana.  When Jagdeo makes a statement, takes a position, like this in public, he transforms into an Egyptian mummy straight out of a Boris Karloff movie.  It figures because I believe that he fancies himself a Guyanese Pharoah.

Like some very patriotic Guyanese pray: God help Guyana.  Forget about Guyana, God please help me.  To know better and not to deal with people of the peculiar calibre of Bharrat Jagdeo. Okay, if Guyanese are to believe what Jagdeo just said about zero dollars down by Guyana, and zero interest charged by Exxon, then what is Exxon’s new interest.  Finally, what has the company shown to Jagdeo to captivate his interest.

(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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• conspirator, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, Exxon, GHK Lall, policymaker

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