Wales – a heart-to-heart with Bharrat Jagdeo

Jan 26, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths…

By GHK Lall

 Kaieteur News- And now for something totally different.  Though Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, a brother and leader that keeps falling, has made oil and gas management into a national circus, I shall stick to the serious.  He has signaled not one more question on the Wales gas-to-electricity (GTE).  I shall ignore that Jagdeo red light, drive straight through it.  For I have my own set of questions for Vice President Jagdeo.  Answering could only help him, let Guyanese see what he is all about with US$2 billion of their money, what will be part of their future obligations.  Refusing to answer will confirm that he has fallen so far that nothing and no one can salvage him.  The questions now follow.

First question, sir.  Was sending Guyanese to the US EXIM bank for documents related to the Wales project intended to be a distraction or a deception laced through with much deviousness?  For my part, I could manage with red herrings (distractions).  But wild goose chases (deceptions) are dead ends which no leader should go down, or dispatch any citizen, no matter how troublesome he or she is, to travel in futile exercises.  I have no use for such a leader, don’t do well with such misleaders.

Second question, Mr. Jagdeo.  Why the trembling, why the truculence of an enraged turkey, with a project that so held out as embodying so much that is bright?  If the project is that good, it will sell itself.  There is nothing to be enraged about, and nothing to secret away like some squirrel.  Standup, step up, share out.

Question number three, Master Jagdeo.  Media ads seeking expressions of interest, naming the bidders and winners of various components of the Wales project, and the rest do not represent transparency.  They are part of official routines.  Why, therefore, the fear involving real transparency (not the make-believe kind) with the feasibility studies-technical, financial, and other(s)-that provide credible evidence that the project is viable?  The follow-up question that has weight is whether any kind of feasibility study was done, or did brother Jagdeo pull some scrawny rabbit out of his closet of hats?

The questions keep rolling out, and I am now at the fourth (or fifth) one, Lord Jagdeo.  Incidentally, I am a firm believer that a soft word, or a quiet manner, turns away wrath.  I have tried it with raging bulls and pit-bulls.  It works.  There was pride in Bharrat Jagdeo, I detected some sense of achievement, almost personal, as if that EXIM due diligence report, all 197 pages of it, was his handiwork.

EXIM owns that due diligence report, so where is Guyana’s own feasibility study for the two billion in Yankee dollars for the Wales project?  A project that went from a Jagdeo symphony to a sacred hymn (or bajan), so extraordinary it is?  What was submitted by Guyana to get EXIM moving?  Brother Jagdeo, that is what Guyanese would like to know and see. Now the questions come in a flurry.  What reason could there be that makes such a disclosure, a bone of contentiousness?  Why would an honest revelation on the Wales GTCE prompt such great leadership trepidations?

I couldn’t help that, Dr. Jagdeo: where there were five questions in a rushing tide, instead of one by one in a gradual trickle.  Hence, I am now at question eight, so please don’t get bent out of shape just yet.  This business about EXIM lending Guyana over US$500 million for a part of the Wales project says much about its foundation and its potential, from where was that excavated?  Was that bit of self-congratulation and self-promotion not misplaced?  I say this because a leader of Dr. Jagdeo’s stature, a man with his insights, should know that the US$527 million EXIM loan is more about minimizing the Chinese economic footprint in Guyana, and maximizing the American one in its place.  It helps that Guyana has 11 billion sacks of oil underneath the riverbed.  For whether oil hovers around US$80 a barrel or swoons to US$18 a head (God forbid), EXIM and the other lenders near and far will be paid.  The Guyana collateral is there, only more of it will have to be sold at depressed prices to fulfill suddenly punishing debt service obligations when they are due.

Before I get to the final questions, Gas Master Jagdeo, there is a little recital to place in the public space.  I want cheap electricity, and there is a wish for cheap, reliable electricity for my fellow Guyanese.  I believe that Jagdeo-ji wants the same.  Where we start to differ and depart is why does he find it so inspiring, so comforting, to deal in secrecy?  How can any leader claiming declaring himself to be trustworthy and credible, come to believe that secrecy is a shining version of transparency?  When chronic secrecy is part of the Wales skullduggeries (US$2 billion of them), Mr. Vice President, how is that not a snake disguised as the savior of the Guyanese people?  Last, I say this again: I could be lock, stock, and barrel for this US$2 billion Wales project.  But only when a clear picture is presented, and it has much to recommend it.

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

(Wales – a heart-to-heart with Bharrat Jagdeo)

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• Bharrat Jagdeo, hard truths, Jagdeo, national circus, Wales project

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