By current standards, the Synergy dispute has lasted a long time, as talk and almost daily revelations continue without pause. But given the now well established record accumulated by the PPP government, it is likely that the burning controversies surrounding Synergy – its track record, selection, and suitability – will suffer the same fate as earlier debacles. That is, the name Synergy and associated interest will soon be committed to the growing landfill of the silent, the forgotten, and the unresolved. This is not accidental, but a deliberate strategy on the part of this government; it is one that has proven to be unerringly successful.
The well travelled road to Amaila Falls will soon be deserted and quiet, and almost eerily so. All the travellers – the inquiring, the confrontational, the evasive, and the misled – will fade before the inevitability of time and distance. Road rage will give way to the pitiless tick of fatigue, to the certain political darkness, to the stillness that only solitary travellers know. The search for answers and the right directions would have been fruitless. Again. It is part of a studied political calculus, the norm indelibly woven into the new democratic traditions in Guyana. Synergy will be the latest diseased example; already, it is the most durable one.
At this point, there can be no question that Synergy will follow the same pathway hewn by this government time and again. It is a pathway constructed of the people’s money, conniving politicians, and lurking fellow travellers; of fortuitous discovery and strident outcry; and of the occasional condescension through murky press disclosures that insult, and provoke further outcry. And then nothing. The government will stonewall, but the quest for some semblance of transparency and accountability will persist for a time along an uncertain, if not hard road. But for a government laden with secrets, there is a not so secret weapon: the clock. When the tumult ebbs, there will be the customary petering out of interest and inquiry. Finally, there will be only silence. The PPP clock would have triumphed again. In Synergy, the party will celebrate another bullet dodged, as it prepares for the next opaque undertaking.
This will be so because very few individuals and organizations, if any, will be able to summon the energy and doggedness to pursue this issue on a sustained basis tomorrow, as much as they do today. Time and silence will shroud the hastily built roads in Florida and elsewhere that the cartographers are still trying to locate; that the beneficiary forgot to remember in his own release; that government hacks mangled when they decided to face the microphones. Wags will essay that those imaginary roads did represent the latest in underwater road building technology, as they exist somewhere in the bowels of the Everglades. Or the bloated stomachs of distressed alligators. No, the dog did not eat the homework this time. Instead, the alligators devoured the dog that ate the shoddy homework of both NICIL and the Ministry? Incredibly, the belated PR antics of the Fipster might be recalled as having more credibility than that of official rotundities seeking to square the irregular. The thoughtful will reminisce later over the surging official confidence in the Auditor General’s office, at the very time when that office has lost tooth, eyesight, and professional vigour. But who cares? What is there to fear when time is an ally?
The artful dodgers in government will be all merriment when they trade war stories of one more hazardous kilometre traversed, but still concealed. By any yardstick, concealment has come to represent the hallmark of the manner in which this government conducts the nation’s business. It is the concealment that prompts continuous intrigues, and the sanitized illumination of obscurum per obscurius. This is the crooked road from somewhere to nowhere that started on Robb Street and Vlissengen Road; that will be slickly paved over, and meander into timelessness. If all the waters from Amaila fall into the Ganges it will not be enough to wash away the political demons and litter that besmirch these deeds. These iniquities have been seen too many times before.
Remember the GPL? It was born in the chaos engendered by heightened political hostility. The opposition had publicly damned it as secretive; others saw it as the only way forward on a major societal concern, and lent tacit support. Well, the secretive has become an immovable cornerstone of government planning and implementation strategies. In fact, the secretive has become its way of life, as in security reform (UK); crime (Lindo Creek); more crime (Sawh). Then there are the ancient secrets of duty free scams, of a squatting area outfit allowed to fail repeatedly on the taxpayers’ dollar and now an international conglomerate in its own eyes; a domestic Synergy. These days it is untouchable, and so are its shortcomings now dulled by time. The point in these examples, and all the others now forgotten, is that the government has cleverly succeeded in outlasting scrutiny and criticism in what have become endurance duels. Most importantly, it is that after every significant incident, the matters remain unresolved but firmly outside the mainstream of any ongoing pressure or in-depth exposure. These matters have been relegated to mere footnotes representative of a continuous litany of governmental ineptitude and worse. They exist for reference purposes only, and are quickly superseded by the newer episodes of government defalcation. So Synergy follows in the erased, but barely audible, footsteps of those involved in concessions, construction, or crime, to name a few areas. It represents one more snafu conceived in secrecy, and nursed within the quarantined confines of concealment.
NICIL and OP believe that this is complex and undetectable. They are wrong. Further, they believe that the cloak of time and the inevitable encroaching silence will provide insulation and immunity. So far, the government’s scorecard has been perfect. Soon Synergy will bask in a reign of silence; silence golden for the deceivers and palpable in the winepress of a nation’s anger.
