The Jagdeo Jig!

Nov 15, 2024 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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…Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News-Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo has become master of sidestepping, shuffling, and even pirouetting his way around any question that might remotely require a straight answer. His jig was on full display at yesterday’s press conference.

Most politicians have a knack for evasive maneuvers, but Jagdeo doesn’t just answer questions; he performs. When a reporter from Kaieteur News dared ask about the making public the feasibility study of the gas-to-energy project, Jagdeo, in a virtuoso display, spun in the verbal equivalent of circles, almost like a matador teasing a particularly inquisitive bull. “It’s the numbers that matter,” he said. But one can’t help but feel that Jagdeo isn’t so much providing clarity as he is offering us an interpretive dance, one that is part spectacle and part mystery.

Jagdeo’s latest explanation rests on unfiltered logic. The numbers, he assures us, justify the project. How’s that for reassurance? No feasibility study needs to be published, just take a leap of faith into the matrix of these mythical numbers. This, dear readers, is gas-to-energy governance in action. As long as there are numbers—however cryptic—floating around in some vault, the project is obviously bound to be a success. Who needs transparency when you have numerology?

Now, the Vice President might say that he’s merely protecting the populace from the cumbersome technicalities of such a “highly technical document.” After all, why burden ordinary people, like Glenn Lall, with details they might never understand?

And what exactly are these hallowed numbers Jagdeo speaks of? If we could only catch a glimpse! Let’s remember, though, that we have witnessed Jagdeo’s flirtation with numbers before. Recall the Great Skeldon Sugar Factory Fiasco—a production factory that was supposed to sweeten Guyana’s economic future but instead collapsed into an expensive monument of optimistic mathematics gone wrong. Numbers have their own sense of humor, it seems, and they enjoy making the Vice President look a tad overenthusiastic.

Ah, but in this dance, the Vice President has also hinted at a magical self-paying gas-to-energy project. It’s like a fable from a business textbook: if we just bottle the liquefied petroleum gas, the income will cover the project’s cost. Simple, no?

Except that this little detail has led the government to seek private investors for a second natural gas project. Call me skeptical, but when an investment is a goldmine, the state doesn’t usually auction it off to the private sector. In fact, when private companies come sniffing around, the typical reaction isn’t to roll out the red carpet—it’s more like, “How lucrative could this really be if they’re outsourcing?”

To be fair, Jagdeo is consistent about one thing: transparency. He speaks of it as one would an old friend, a friend one would invite for coffee but who never actually makes it out of the house. His government promised that transparency would be a priority, yet here we are, repeatedly assured that the numbers make the project feasible. But how can we know this for sure, if we have not seen the numbers?

This avoidance strategy seems almost endearing until you realize the real-world implications. The feasibility study isn’t some abstract document that’s just of interest to economists and oil magnates. It’s a document that outlines risks, costs, and benefits that the entire country will shoulder. By keeping it under wraps, the government has left ordinary citizens with only his word and the dance of his evasion. If these numbers Jagdeo speaks of truly make the gas-to-energy project the economic miracle he suggests, then the government should be downright ecstatic—no, eager—to make them public. Instead of hiding this golden formula under lock and key, they should be plastering it on every billboard from Georgetown to Skeldon, letting every citizen bask in the glory of such enlightened investment. After all, what better way to silence critics and skeptics than to show, clear as day, that this is not just another white elephant in the making. And yet, for all this “feasibility,” the government acts like they’re guarding not figures but the crown jewels, leaving us to wonder: if this project is so rock-solid, why the hesitation in making public the feasibility study?

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

(The Jagdeo Jig!)

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• evasive maneuvers, No feasibility study, Peeping Tom, shuffling, sidestepping

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