Jagdeo on contract awards

Feb 11, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths…

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News-Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo has a defence relative to contract awards.  Specifically, he objects to being attached to and held responsible for contracts awarded to a Guyanese who uses the handle ‘Critic.’  The man who is in charge of everything (I mean everything) in Guyana says that he was not there when the Critic contracts decisions were made, so it is improper and unfair to hang them over his head.  This may shock many citizens, but I hear him and believe him: after all, even a man as gifted as Jagdeo can’t be in several places at once.  He may hold himself out as divine, but he is only a man: a slippery, sloppy, even shadowy fella, come to think of it.  But I still believe him.  But only up to a point.

VP Jagdeo may not have been physically present at the related Cabinet meetings when the decision was finalized, re the contracts for Mr. Critic.  But what about his comrades in the Cabinet?  What about them, Guyanese may ask?  Who did they work for, tirelessly?  Who do they live in mortal fear of, constantly?  Who do they know full well, and what his expectations are?  Be assured, the answers to those questions all embrace one heroic Guyanese: Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo.  Cabinet decisionmakers are most familiar with how the contract game is played.  They know that the national tender board has the spinners and googly masters (like Pakistan’s Wasim Akram, the express deliverer) to fix things up and clean things up for Cabinet’s rubberstamp and signature.  In kindness, I label that as a hand-in-glove understanding and setup.  Considering all this, Dr. Jagdeo doesn’t have to be at Cabinet, or the national tender board, or anywhere else, for his unstated wishes, his believed preferences, and his ready wrath to be understood.

The leader’s shadow is feared to be coming out of the walls, hovering from the overhead lighting, and lurking under the table.  Who is going to vote/decide against a contract that includes a known and intimate Jagdeo commodity on it?  Is somebody kidding me?  I believe that Dr. Jagdeo just tried to make a fool out of me.  He is free to try that with the rest of Guyana, but there are two signs written in big red lettering here: Not wanted!  Not welcomed!  Jagdeo is not at Cabinet meetings, but not just his shadow stretches over the deliberations (pretended or hollow).  There is that powerful smell usually associated with one Bharrat Jagdeo that invades the nostrils of the ministers and other lovelies who are part of the proceedings.  That smell travels from their nostrils to their brains.  Wisdom arrives on winged feet.  This is what Comrade Jagdeo would want: one for Mr. Critic.  This is what the esteemed Maximum Leader would be pleased with: another one for Mr. Critic.  It is all on the table, though nothing is in the minutes.  The less said, the less memorialized.  Moreover, it must be remembered that Cabinet meetings and writings are mostly stamped “Secret.”

So, Mr. Jagdeo is now sheltering via the safety of absence and distance.  “Laak ah sed, I believe the man.”  He does have to be at the ready always to answer the calls and commands of Alistair Routledge and Darren Woods.  Guyanese must not forget those two Executive Presidents of this Republic.  Jagdeo was not present, but he later pronounced when pressed by the press.  He was all blather about tender evaluators and criteria and procedure around the tender administration cabal.  About who must do their job (like Cabinet) and blah, blah, blah ad infinitum.  This is a crucial, usually overlooked, aspect of the vice president’s verbal hopscotches.  He picked the people for the tender board; his people own the Cabinet; and it is his procurement commission that has the majority and holds the chair.  The result is a playful pup for a tender board, and a pathetic poodle for a procurement commission.  If Comrade Jagdeo (he is that) was serious about the Critic (Mr. Critic) contract awards, he would have called for a full-blown probe into that award.

No! No! Not his lame ducks around Oil Fund management and the other regulars who make genuine inquiries into a belly busting laff and Guyana gaff story.  If Dr. Jagdeo is serious about contract awards, any of the questionable ones, he would not go on the defensive with his usual dodges and drifts.  He would go on the offensive, by getting credible people to look into more than contract awards.  He would check out the entire National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB), strip it down, and start over with new faces, characters that are kind to the welfare of the Guyanese people.

All of Dr. Jagdeo’s Yabba, Yabba, Doo of Fred Flintstone fame no longer serves him as well as before.  His distractions have lost their prior selling strength.  Guyanese are not buying anymore.  Not being at Cabinet decision-making meeting(s) is cuckoo stuff.  Start over bhai Bharrat.  Stop running for cover.  Face the nation.  Level with the people.

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

(Jagdeo on contract awards)

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• contract awards, Critic, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, Guyanese, hard truths

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