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Road projects
Editorial…
Kaieteur News- Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo is either one of Guyana’s biggest farces, or he is the most visionary and outspoken national leader. The man who is Guyana’s Chief Oil Minister can hardly speak calmly and persuasively about his oil portfolio. Yet he gives himself free rein to launch into road projects, their shoddy results, and how Guyanese are stiffed for their billions spent. He is as silent as a doorknob when questions are put to him on oil, which he oversees. But is a stream of concern on the management of road projects.
It is clear that Jagdeo has few ideas, and no confidence in himself, on how to go about squeezing the most out of ExxonMobil from the nation’s oil wealth. So, he tries a new distraction by diving into the lack of proper project management by the Ministry of Works on its road portfolio. He is stuck at ground zero, viz-a-viz., unable and unwilling to do anything of substance with oil, other than rubberstamp new projects and jump to obey ExxonMobil’s wishes. Poor management of road projects is his latest gimmick, one filled with meaningless noise. It is instructive to listen to what he had to say at the Guyana Energy Conference and Supply Chain Expo.
“They don’t think of the thousands of people who are discomforted every day.” This has to be a new Jagdeo for many Guyanese. Since when has he ever cared about what comforts or discomforts of citizens? His sharp remarks were made at the local Energy Conference to an audience comprising a strong foreign presence. Some of them had to have seen the state of Guyana’s roads on their way from local airports to their places of lodgings, or from there to the Energy Conference. Because Jagdeo is such a known commodity, a wily political operator, was he really concerned about how much Guyanese are discomforted by poor road works? Or was he conveying to foreigners that it’s not his portfolio, but the roads will be fixed, because he guarantees it?
What was not surprising is how the nation’s leading oil voice cannot help himself any longer. He just must be who he is, regardless of the time and place, the decorum demanded. A Guyana Energy Conference is not the occasion to be berating, so to speak, a government ministry before the world. The vice president may see himself as being frank and on the job, but oversight and pronouncing on the state of road works are not his job. That’s the purview of the responsible minister, of which there are two at the Ministry of Works. When either or both of the two ministers cannot deliver well-completed road projects, then that’s the time for President Ali to step in and have his say.
The president had a hard mouthful to share a few dawns ago on Guyanese not getting value for their money through project delays. He is the best person to have another go at road contractors, supervising engineers, and Ministry of Works officials, from public servants to its political officers. Clearly, Jagdeo was listening all along when this paper (and others in the independent media) reported fairly often on broken or collapsed roads, works that shortchanged Guyanese and cause they ongoing discomfort. It is encouraging that he is reading and listening. What is less than inspiring is when he airs that laundry before the audience at the Energy Conference. Where was he all the other times when badly managed road projects were reported by this paper? How come he didn’t care before, did even take too kindly to prior poor management exposés, but is so concerned now?
We think that, in trying to manifest how much he is concerned about some issue in Guyana, Jagdeo overdid his acting, chose the wrong setting. There is something called the wrong time and wrong place before the wrong people, and Guyana’s oil champion failed on all three counts. He is sure to have made his audience, the foreign section of it, look at him more dismissively. What we see is man out of his depth, one who overcompensates by laying off blame on others, in a manner that now reeks of routine leadership convenience.
(Road projects)
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