Dear Editor,
It is time for Bharrat Jagdeo to go. He is wasting time, distorting lines, pretending to wisdom with this sacred oil patrimony. Jagdeo degrades oil just by being near to it. Is the Local Government portfolio flexible? Then, President Ali should move people about, and find a home there for Jagdeo. Frankly, he really should be totally out of anything related to government. He has had his time, and Guyanese are worst off for it.
Locally, oil is more precious than water, with Jagdeo engaged in its husbandry. Bharrat Jagdeo and oil is a mismatch, a recipe for prolonged crisis. He can’t give straight answers to oil questions, employs vitriol to insulate his ignorance. From somewhere, he obtains some technical terms, and is pleased to insert those into his answers and dissertations (diatribes also) in an ongoing effort to demonstrate how deep he is. Look no farther than the concrete drainage system in Georgetown, and that is the depth of Jagdeo’s oil knowledge. His comprehension of what proper and prudent oil management means for Guyana is a tragedy unfolding before a transfixed, perplexed population. Everyone made the mistake of thinking that Jagdeo knew what he was about with this national oil wealth. He doesn’t. It is why he hedges (royalties). It is why he hides (reports and expenses). It is why he resorts to being the crude oil ‘heavy’ (intimidator).
I have had the misfortune of reading Chris Ram’s hauling the real Jagdeo out into the open and flaying him for his oil weaknesses. What does the man Jagdeo know? What game is he pretending to be a master of, with postures that are porous even before a casual observer? It has been my dirty duty to listen to tiny extracts from the Vice President’s Thursday press conferences at Freedom House. As dirty jobs go, it stinks to listen to the Vice President of oil meandering around inquiries, issues, dissembling, and making a laughingstock of himself. The irony is that Jagdeo fools himself into believing that he is inspiring on oil, invincible in his perch, intricate in wizardry. When a quality answer is demanded, he delivers quantity in the belief that bulk impresses his audience. Absorb his accentuation of the positives: doubling production and oil prices favouring. Oil is neither that steady nor that cooperative.
What he fails to realize is that the more smoke he blows, the more he exposes his absence of know-how. Beating around the bush on oil matters fools none. Take that US$214M audit findings. Why are Guyanese being strung along, why not in arbitration yet? How is Exxon a partner when it lunges for that US$107M, after having some sneaky and suspicious nearness to that effort to reduce it to US$3M? I would have personally given Mr. Routledge a one-way ride to the airport. Guyana doesn’t need his kind here. If Jagdeo cannot deal with Routledge on a measly US$214M (divided in two) in disputed audit findings, then what can he offer on royalty collections that would convince that he is the man for the big oil job? He is shambolic, indicating a man feeling his way around a challenging subject. A bluffer.
In lesser countries than Guyana, a state that must be seen to be believed, a Jagdeo would have been dropkicked out of that portfolio. The guy is not just unfit. He is unready. Unsteady, but pretending to be an oil somebody. Ask a basic oil question, and see what he knows, how much is foam and flimflam. And when he runs out of spit bubbles, he unveils his oil battering rams. Vilification. Damnation. Criminalization. It is time that Bharrat Jagdeo goes. He has done enough damage. He has been too protective of Exxon, even seemingly castrated himself to curry favour with Exxon. Guyanese have no use for such an oil leader. He has nothing to offer them, a completely impotent presence. He cannot be otherwise, when he smartly uses Freedom House as his hideaway and getaway for oil discussions. Oil discussions are not trysts.
As his party’s General Secretary, he is within boundaries to expound on party concerns from Robb Street. But not on oil. He can speak on oil, be listened to on oil, in any forum other than Freedom House. When the issue is of elections, Venezuelans for Votes, lists, and dead voters, then Freedom House it should be. But not for oil nor any other natural resources nor safety nor money. Though President Ali has been weakened by revelations involving his own (guess who authored?), he should don armor and send Jagdeo packing. Ali either gets rid of Jagdeo or gets dragged down by him. Remember: I warned him.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall
