Grasping at phantoms. Scraping to get from the bottom

Jul 31, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

Hard Truths by GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – The more that Guyana’s Vice President of Oil and Gas (a lot of it), Dr. Bharrat “Exxon” Jagdeo believes that he has fooled Guyanese, the more he fools himself. Now he is so irrationally exuberant that he has jumped overboard where there is no water, only jagged piles waiting to welcome him. The latest monkey Dr. Jagdeo dragged out of his sock was that Chevron is good for Guyana’s interests. Say what? Say that again, skipper, if only for confirmation, please. The tension between the two American oil mountain lions will pit them against one another, which is to the benefit of Guyana. Definitely the PPP and its crooked cabals, but not Guyanese. No way, no sir! Tensions between Exxon and Chevron is how the once lordly but now listless local oil rajah, makes morons of naïve Guyanese. His journey has been muddy and dirty: from Bharrat ‘Exxon’ Jagdeo to Bharrat ‘Exxon v. Chevron’ Jagdeo. One grasping at phantoms, to lift from the bottom.

Is wah kine ah ekanamics dis big maan study? I forget that it was Russia’s, where the commies fooled the world (including Americans) about how well their economy was doing, until it was exposed as a dud, a long-unburied dead. How the Russians savaged their own and stunk up the world, that is the same way that Jagdeo mesmerizes Guyanese, then pulverizes them with insipidity. He highlights Exxon-Chevron’s tensions as being in Guyana’s interests. Their fight will be what is right for Guyana. Their corporate brawls will reduce them to a crawl, which will help Guyana sprawl all the way into prosperity. I like the feeble leadership pitch.

But it is blindingly clear that Guyana’s oilman’s head is buried too deep in the Communist Manifesto. He forgot, or ignored, or dumbed down the alpha and omega of capitalism, of corporate raison d’etre. It is the almighty and incomparable profit motive. Profit in the shower. Profit in the street. Profit in the sleep. And, oh yes, profit in times of sickness and sadness, too. The vice president has held himself as a forgiving citizen. I return the favor tenfold. He studied (or played games) in St Petersburg, where the snows of Moscow can be brutal. Something over there in the tundra got into Jagdeo’s head, with Guyana now having its own Manchurian Candidate at the highest levels of national governance. I believe that it is two of them and not just one.

Bharrat may not know, so he parrots his load of horse manure enriched with company tensions. He may not know that wonderful commercial from Dunkin Donuts. The one where the baker is asleep on his feet, but still mumbling ‘gotta make the donuts. Gotta make the donuts.’ I recruit Dr. Ashni Singh or the even more versatile Dr. Bobby Gopinath of Oil and Gas maneuvers. Please tell Commodore Jagdeo that ‘Gotta make the donuts’ is not about customer satisfaction, or baker’s pride. It’s about the grand convulsions of profit addictions. Oil without profit is like oil without sulfur. Or, as is more relevant to the PPP, a teef maan without a vision, a program, and an offshore bank (or family) to stash away his cash hauls.

Indeed, Exxon and Chevron will have their corporate battles. It’s the nature of real organizations, ones that are vibrant and not comatose, like the PPP meetings that Jagdeo dominates. Even in standalone companies, where differences and challenges are seen as healthy, there can be battle royals, the tensions about which Dr. Jagdeo read in some comic book, but doesn’t know firsthand. Executives duke it out to get it right. The American corporate environment, especially Fortune 100 companies, are not like the PPP cabinet, where countless sluggards and dullards proliferate, and Jagdeo is king in that one-eyed country. I have been near some of those internal company wars, and am lucky to be alive to tell the tale. It is always about what yields the richest returns for the company.

No question that Exxon and Chevron will experience tensions, but any resentments over Exxon’s delaying, self-serving antics will flee swiftly. It’s just business, nothing personal, which Mr. Jagdeo should get in his head. I understand it’s not as thick. Another piece of wisdom is offered to him free. Exxon and Chevron will knock heads, since both Darren Woods and Michael Wirth are alpha wolves angling to be the baddest dog in the boardroom. Still, in the lulls that follow, they will join heads for the common cause. Remember, stupid: it’s all about profits. When all else hangs in the balance, and it must be the way to keep Guyana in its place as a slave state, and passive milking cow, then that is what will be done. I pity Jagdeo. He grasps at phantoms (tension) to get off the bottom.

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

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GHK Lall, Oil and Gas, PPhantoms, Scraping

One thought on “Grasping at phantoms. Scraping to get from the bottom”

Subhash Pertab August 1, 2025 at 1:06 pm

The gist of this article centers on the wholesale and unconscionable selling out of Guyana by its own politicians. As a Guyanese Living Overseas [GLO} I have been following politics in my homeland for most of my years overseas, with special interest in the politics and politicians who were/are front and center in the negotiations about and management of Guyana’s petroleum riches and resources. The early participants in the negotiations with the wily and experienced oil companies blatantly ignored all of the warnings, for several well-known sources, about the pitfalls of the contract which was eventually approved. The effects of poor judgement and untold opportunities to ‘share’ in the wealth were some of the more attractive incentives that the early signers discovered and which has resulted in Guyana being effectively being robbed by the likes of Exxon, Chevron, et al.

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