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By GHK Lall
I congratulate His Excellency, PresidentAli on his two years at the helm. The leadership and governance waters have been choppy, he has flinched at the peaks and foundered near the troughs. On the former I commend the Vice President for being near so that his protégé doesn’t stumble much. He has. Regarding the lows, they have been alarming, wretched. How does the record attest?
The Guyana Review saw the President as getting around, hobnobbing with foreign leaders. I agree, but being Country-Western performer Ricky Nelson’s ‘traveling man’ is not the same as a presidential man. Guyanese need some meat on the leadership skeleton, genuinely respected substance. I planned to hand to the nation’s head-of-state, but grasp straws. There is applause for relief funds, a good thing, but the benefits have vanished as if they didn’t happen. COLA or tax relief nationally, anybody? Similarly, applause goes for infrastructure billions for numerous public works projects, but building also masks the opportunity for billions to be siphoned off. On the surface, aid and project billions glow with healthy presidential decisions; just below there are provisions for loyalists and other comrades to help themselves. It is not merely land piracy anymore, but hijacking of integrity in this country, something which the President should think about, but only on the condition that he has personified, lived thoroughly himself. I and thinking of Ali Baba and the 40 thieves for some reason, and there is uncertainty about who is the star and who are the villains. My doubts are abundant, given who is behind his presidency, the people he surrounds himself, those he calls his friends. Thank God the President is not a landlord. Considering Mon Repos and Buxton, I think the moniker ‘President Moneyman Ali settles nicely on his head, though I get the increasing sense that he would prefer being addressed as Excellency Ali the Almighty.
Then, his comportment and escaping strains of his speech give him away, with his Bartica beatdown being the last example, where he took a machete to a female puppy.On the speechifying side, the President is all toothy smiles and warmth, just don’t object to what he puts out (no matter how gaudy or goofy), and ensure that his path is not crossed for there will be hell to pay. I noted in the last two years, how he is not a man to be trifled with, must have his way, or he will get his people to straighten out some naysayers, doomsayers, and scaremonger hollering to the winds that the emperor’s underwear is filled with holes. That is, if they can find it. My word to the nation’s leader with ambitions to be a maximum leader is that he makes the best use of the syrupy symphonies that his speechwriters craft for him: be courteous at all times (it makes man and leader), be a man of friend and foe in taking the sugary with the sandpapery. Unfortunately, the President now fancies himself a geometrician like Euclid. He works the angles of words hoping some light will shine and reflect. I remind the leader and his coaches that even Jesus and the Prophet Mohammed had their resisters, while I hasten to hope that the President doesn’t see himself to be either of the two. He did swear to be a healer, though; now about that I must remove gloves and go after my brother, my leader, since I have appointed myself keeper and watcher of both.
His Excellency swore to three lynchpins during his inaugural, which I do him a favor in pointing to the straight and narrow road. Most regrettably, he has strayed, a picture or orneriness and recklessness. Today, I refuse to spoil thissketch by unsheathing such words as unmanly rottenness and foolishness. Not when a President is the subject. The point is that the President did commit, promise, I insist swear, that he was going to be about transparency, unity, and accountability. I was thrilled, only to start feeling like a fool quickly. To put it delicately, President Ali should stay away from taking oaths, since he has not been a persuasive ambassador of truth, which is the sole imperative that makes those three possible. The President has been illuminating in being untransparent, with the feeble rays coming from him smudgy, smoky, and dirty.
The President has been disruptive where unity is concerned, and I think that the macabre calculation behind the farce of ‘One Guyana’ is that the rest of people are sent the clearest messages on who is left out, and who matters. Simply test the evidence of his relief assistance, subsidies.To retrace, he shares out billions, but punishes Regions 4 and 10; I observe a leader who is a partial and prejudiced social worker. Yes, it is that glaring; of course, I am sure he delivered a sweet Emancipation Day speech. I have only words to take your heart away (Bee Gees), and not any money. Still, he has proven to be a crisis manager of sorts when the pressure menaces. Buxton shouldn’t have to break legs to get feet moving in its direction. Simply sets a bad precedent because it gives other places and people ideas. Regarding the sticky issue of accountability, the corruptions are not only local, with the foreigners highly meaningful players in the prospering actions. If I were to apply for a half-acre piece of land, all would know. Yet an easterner could be awarded thousands of acres of land, plus more rich things, and nobody knows. Why, the man, this tenant, is a national budget himself, needs his own PAC.
In brief, President had it everythingvested in him-goodwill, empathy, hope-only to squander all. Instead of Guyanese getting a leader governing nationally, we have a regular partisan political operator. I leave with American oilman Carl Icahn and his helpful words: Those who get to be chosen chief: not the smartest, not the brightest, not the best, but…reliable. It’s the survival of the un-fittest.”
