Oil money is the sweetest.  Politicians are the weakest.  Oil cash is romance, makes Guyanese politicians dance.

Dec 22, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths…

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News- I coulda been a rap composah.  Definitely a soul singah, maybe even an Indian melody makah.  What is it that gives Guyanese politicians the heebie-jeebies with billions of barrels of underwater oil?  It is said that oil and water don’t mix.  Somebody should check into the combination of oil and Guyanese politics.  I am listening to the whole crop of local smarties, the ones who called themselves political leaders.  In case any Guyanese forgot them, I name them.

President Irfaan “We are honorable people” Ali.  Vice President Bharrat ‘My Name is Exxon’ Jagdeo.  Leader of the Opposition Aubrey ‘Don’t put words in my mouth’ Norton.  And, of course, the other opposition leader, Nigel ‘Oil and Gas Committee’ Hughes.  Do these guys feet actually touch the ground?  Frankly, I cannot help believing that all four of them live in an alternative oil universe.  If this is the best that Guyana is capable of producing, doing their best for Guyanese, then I hear that sad refrain of the Chi-Lites echoing: let’s just kiss and say goodbye.

Goodbye to oil dreams.  Goodbye to those oil millions that were equal parts mirage and mockery.  Goodbye to any confidence that the local cohort of political luminaries will bring home the oil bacon.  Oil has its viscosity, bacon is greasy.  The combination of the two makes Guyanese skid.  To nowhere, but downward.  When Guyanese need a hand up, the Ali-Jagdeo duet gave them a handout.  It is worse than a handout.  It is a hand-me-down, that $100,000.  When the twisted insiders, tricky finaglers, and nasty operators were done grabbing, ailing and fading Guyanese were remembered, treated to de li’l leff leff.

What kind of country can this be, with all this oil, and all of its leaders speaking the same language, singing from the same songbook, and crooning the same tune?  When I say leaders, don’t think of only political ones.  Name one churchman, one temple man, one from the mosque who has had one word about how oil should be prioritized to benefit all Guyanese.  Only one named.  Go ahead!  Make my day.  But back to Messrs. Ali, Jagdeo, Norton, and Hughes.  After all their seemingly bitter public brawling about who didn’t do what, and who should do what, with this oil, there is something conspicuous.  They are all, in effect, saying the same thing.  Exxon is a big, bad, dog.  Leave the Exxon contract alone.  Don’t talk to me (to us) about renegotiation.  Renegotiation is off the table, dead, according to each of them, all four of them.  I call that holding one head; speaking with one voice.  As a quartet, they make rings around the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Mississippi Mass Choir.  Goddamn it!  What is so difficult to understand about No Renegotiation of the Exxon oil contract?

To introduce some tranquility into this oil patrimony, here’s a thought.  How could any Guyanese-Brown, Black, Grey, Gay, Orthodox, or Unorthodox-place one speck of faith in these guys?  Somebody should be imprisoned for trusting them.  Say the word renegotiation and they all manifest a peculiar condition.  The make tracks that run parallel to the discussion that’s necessary, absolutely compulsory.  They tell the people why negotiation cannot be done.  Or why not now, but maybe later.  Or how the contract that was so criminal is now so beautiful.

Another drifter found the perfect answer: sanctity.  In this country, oil has made Guyanese so profane that they pelt bricks at mandirs and masjids, and call that piety (sanctity).  A third decided that the best course was to mark his oil calendar: in another 365 days.  Then just to keep the suspense going, threw in 100 more days to keep Guyanese dangling in the air longer.  Still another, settled for easy street.  A delegator-in-chief he will be, with an oil and gas committee to advise he.  What slackness is this!  If a shirker today, then tomorrow doesn’t look too catholic.

I wonder what Alistair “Super boss” Routledge thinks of all this.  If super-boss sounds like some newly patented gasoline, it is.  Has he done a number of the Big Four, or what!  Does he have Guyana’s brightest political stars weaving, backpedaling, plunging, doing every manner of ducking to get out of the way?  Of renegotiating the contract?  Another thought emerged, is now shared with fellow Guyanese.  I, too, am now not for them not saying nor doing anything about renegotiating the Exxon contract.  Here’s the nasty.  They could make a big production of engaging in “renegotiating” the oil contract.  Pretending at renegotiating, when such is nothing but a sham, show, farce and joke.  An insider’s joke with everybody at the renegotiating table winking and nodding, while laughing at how expectant Guyanese are being made for fools.

The last laff is that they get to return and face Guyanese hopefuls, sell them this: we tried, but we failed.  Exxon was immovable.  A real superpower.  What a bunch of malarkey!  Why did Guyana have to have all this oil and then all these walking political dead?  Oil dead.  Renegotiation dead.  Go figure.

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

(Oil money is the sweetest.  Politicians are the weakest.  Oil cash is romance, makes Guyanese politicians dance.)

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• black, Gay, Grey, Guyanese-Brown, hard truths, local smarties, Orthodox

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