Laws and boards

Dec 12, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths…

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News- Thanks to former Coalition Minister, Mr. Winston Jordan for standing up and shouting out.  Toothless and useless were what he said.  A bigger, longer, and louder word of thanks is mailed from me to Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, Vice President of Oil and Gas and, oh well, everything.  For a man without an official portfolio, he has grabbed all the portfolios in the PPP Government and monopolizes them, as though he is the wisest man in Guyana.  He is.  Just by a little hair or two too much.  When such is the case, there is a boomerang that has already left its launchpad, racing on its way.  My head is not in the way of that guillotine.

To repeat, former minister Jordan said that the oil board and those committees are toothless, useless.  I say that, for the most part, commissions and boards formed under the PPP Government are largely boneless, maybe even mostly brainless.  The latter is withdrawn.  There is enough braininess to know what it is that Jagdeo wants, what gives him a big bang.  What the honourable vice president wants, he gets.  He takes those steps, and are they a joy to behold.  Both in the fabricating, and in the performing afterwards.  Winston Jordan’s words come to mind again.  Let there be concentrated attention on this oil inheritance, this most sensitive and crucial of national asset.

Dr. Jagdeo wanted an oil money law of his own, so he went out and got one.  Mr. Granger had one that was sound as a thoroughbred.  Twenty-two pairs of eyes, the same number of ears and mouths, and an equal number of minds.  Legal minds, labour minds, open minds, and young minds.  In his wisdom, Jagdeo said nah.  Too many cooks, too many watchers, too many interferers.  With those come too much trouble.  Fix the law and get a handful of Guyanese who know how to fix their minds and fix oil money matters for a certain outcome.  I told everybody so: there is law.  It is a part of the framework to manage the money.  Which money?  The couple of $20 dollar bills (Guyanese currency) that are in my pocket?

I take this further.  Laws form the basis from which rules and regulations are derived.  Robust ones that protect the money, not protect the ambitions of politicians, who have one objective in mind.  Now, I have to engage in the tiring.  That is, repeat myself for the tenth or twentieth time.  Any country, government, company can have all the laws, rules, and regulations that the true God (or a false one) could give them.  The best of those.  But here is the first revelation: what country, government, and company have at that stage is a single ingredient.  Paper.  A tall stack of it.  The laws, rules, and regs are nothing but paper.  They may as well be blank, for all that they mean, until there is that national miracle that is increasingly rare to encounter.  The right people onboard.  The paper with all of its hidden ink, fine print, and carefully laid webs of legal intrigues (loopholes) can and will only then come alive.  Those brave enough and astute enough to deliver their best for the greater good.  It is revelation number two.

Without any intention of making Mr. Jordan look good, Dr. Jagdeo look bad, and me sounding Solomonic, where are those people in any numbers in Guyana?  In moviemaking, it is said that casting is nine-tenths of the deal.  Jagdeo is the master with the people he casts.  Oil money, though, is not a movie.  What handpicked actors on most boards, or the driver’s seat on any commission or committee?  Very pointedly, I look at the oil board and its other sub-boards (committees) and there is the alarming.  The oil board is giving Guyanese the ‘boards.’  It is a Jagdeo kind of board.  For the likes of Mr. Alistair Routledge and the resident diplomatic corps, I translate.  Giving Guyanese ‘the boards’ or ‘boards-ing’ Guyanese means taking them for a ride.  It is why I humbly disagree with Mr. Jordan: the Jagdeo boards do have their usefulness.  For his visions.  The Jagdeo boards also have a full mouth of teeth.  To bite down on his ideas of what proper oil money stewardship is all about.  And, to bite off the hand and head of anyone who gets adventurous.  To think differently in Mr. Jagdeo’s scheme of calculations is adventurousness, which leads to recklessness.

It is fine to think in the world that Dr. Jagdeo rules over.  There is only one condition for men and women on boards and committees to remember and follow.  Ensure that their thinking matches closely with how he thinks.  To think otherwise is treachery itself.  A betrayal by one turned rogue, who forgot why he or she was called and put where they are.  Selections for oil board and other boards, committees included, are not made for merit.  But for those who know the score.  Those who know how to play Jagdeo’s game.  Here it is one last time.  There are laws, there are boards, and there are those board games.  They mostly stand as the barrenness of a mental wasteland.

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

(Laws and boards)

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• hard truths, honourable vice president, Laws and boards, oil inheritance, PPP Government

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