Congrats to Drs. Ali, Jagdeo

Oct 08, 2026 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

(Kaieteur News) – It must be done; avoiding out of the question. Congratulations to Excellencies Ali and Jagdeo, the former a sitting president, the latter still a president in all but title. Drs. Ali and Jagdeo must have pig iron stomachs. Whoever is halal or haram, holy or a heathen (like me), there’s awe at the strength of their constitutions. What they chew, absorb! How they masticate, then regurgitate!

Pres Ali went around the bush once one Xmas Season. Beat it boisterously. His hope was to rouse some flighty birds. Due to catastrophic failure, the president was compelled to call another gathering, beat the bushes a second time. He must be praised for consistency, staying with a losing team in a losing battle. REOs. RHOs. CEOs. And some other Joes. Apparently, the president’s first message didn’t get through as deeply as it should. So, he summoned a second summit to deal with bottlenecks and roadblocks that cost Guyanese taxpayers. Slowing down means someone is circling around, calculating a fixup. Is the president genuinely dealing with the issue, or going through the motions of doing so?

In between his blistering beatdowns (if they were that), there was Guyana’s other Oscar winning actor, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo. A doctorate in pretense and creativity is his claim to fame, probably his only recommendation. He called his own sit-down in a place named after another president. All these presidents, I confess, is too rich for me. Like Ali, like Jagdeo. The same theme, the same supporting narrative to virtually the same audience. This confounded nonsense must cease. It must stop now. No more teefin, no more mismanagement of the people’s millions (American), no more breaches of procurement laws and regs, no more hanky-panky, no more free passes (the nonconsequential). In sum, a slew of white-collar crimes, but no fine, no time. Time is up.

In thanking Pres Ali and Vice President Jagdeo, reality must be faced, environment understood, and PPP culture detected. There will be a fourth convention for yet another riot act to be read. It’s either someone can’t read well; or the listeners don’t hear well. When a beast of a machinery was constructed (men, women, and billions), then let loose on trusting Guyanese, a mauling that was inevitable. Blood (billions) down the drain. No one held accountable. Not one government officer, not a single PPP comrade, taken apart and put in handcuffs. But Ali and Jagdeo continue with their now tiring motion pictures. A meeting. A greeting. A tongue lashing. Then full-scale retreating following those three signature actions of leaders who hold the copyright on the way Guyana is.

If Pres Ali doesn’t know (surprised if he did), Vice President Jagdeo knows. To his acute discomfort he knows that everyone else knows. When procurement, where big money teems, is put in the hands of mainly comrades of a certain disposition, there can be only one outcome. No number of games (summoning, delivering hard messages, and selling a slick story to the public), succeeds in fooling many. They attended this type of dogfight before; walked away with one idea: a fix happening, a rather laughable one. Because not only the buying and selling (the procurement machinery) is largely in hairy hands, those who have a duty to check on them are made of the same sticky stuff. They suddenly develop several sicknesses. They can’t read. They don’t know to write. So, they can’t find anything, nor report anything. The rip-offs of the people continue unchecked, and the leadership cooking shows are shared with the public. It’s primetime TV when Drs. Ali and Jagdeo call their session.

What’s cooked. How it’s cooked. Only the famished imbibe the stuff that Ali and Jagdeo cook. Recall my assertion on the pig-iron quality of their stomachs. They are forced to eat their own cook-ups. And when they spit it out, hungry dogs lift their hind legs to celebrate it. Congrats to Master Chefs Ali and Jagdeo. Their days of making rings around Guyanese now backfire. They have much more to swallow, what can’t be kept down. Procurement breaches aka PPP business. Try Maalox Excellencies Ali. Jagdeo.

(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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