“Beyond the shadow of a doubt Jagdeo is not to be trusted even with a dog and his bone.” So said Glenn Lall, publisher and owner of Kaieteur News and Kaieteur Radio, on his radio show Thursday evening. Making known whilst some may not agree with his description, Lall said it represents his view of Vice President (VP) Bharrat Jagdeo, who is head of natural resources- including oil and gas, and is “selling out Guyana’s resources.” The situation Lall said would see 95 percent of the population “become scavengers, one percent billionaire and four percent millions.”
Lall was speaking after a press conference hosted by People’s Progressive Party (PPP) General Secretary and VP Jagdeo earlier in the day. Sharing the view of many Jagdeo’s press conferences are ‘buse out’ and do not account for the PPP governance, Lall lambasted the VP for running away from pertinent issues.
Taking a surgical knife, Lall dissected Jagdeo’s statements, point by point, and ridiculed the VP’s inordinate time spent referencing discussing issues that happened 30 years ago and harping back to previous People’s National Congress (PNC) and A Partnership of National Unity and Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) governments.
Jagdeo shared that he went to some Africa countries to speak about Guyana’s National Development Strategy, which he takes credit for preparing as finance minister during the 1990s. However, Lall noted that this is the 21st century and Guyanese are living in poverty in an oil rich country, said to be the world’s fastest growing economy yet the VP has spent “over 10 minutes to kerfuffle the nation of a plan” done so long ago.
Jagdeo has “no shame” Lall shared. According to the publisher the VP’s boast of visiting “Mozambique” is probably where he learned corruption from, because he has “nurtured and cultured corruption in this country.”
Lall advised that “somebody needs to tell this man, and all yuh need to get rid of this man, this man needs to get out of office” even as he called on society to pay attention to what the government is doing. “The noose is tightening around all yuh necks and the necks of your children’s future,” he warned.
The publisher said under Jagdeo’s leadership Guyanese are drinking stink water and living in more blackout which he doesn’t talk about but “every week he throws the nation off track with his ramblings, talking a set of nonsense, repeating he self over and over about the PNC and AFC. avoiding talking about oil and gas.”
Lall’s main issues with the government are the failure to renegotiate the oil contracts- which was a PPP 2020 Election campaign promise- and Guyanese getting a fair deal from the oil and gas revenue. Last Thursday he and others participated in protest in front of the Office of the President, to highlight the issues.
Ascribing Jagdeo’s behaviour to that of a mentally ill person who needs psychiatric intervention, Lall stripped apart, what he called Jagdeo’s effort to avoid dealing with present day issues. He named some of these as the “looting” by the oil giants and Jagdeo’s failure to talk about the PPP’s plan for Guyana with oil and gas resources, gold, among others, “which could take the country to paradise.”
Blasting Jagdeo for his boast that public servants are being paid more under the PPP government, Lall said these salaries are “dog food money.”
He also zeroed in on the Australian Troy Resources mining company skipping Guyana without paying the US$7.2 million revenue. He pointed out that Jagdeo is more pre-occupied with this than the hundreds of millions of U.S dollars ExxonMobil is “looting” the country.
Lall is calling on Guyanese to upturn the country and Jagdeo-“upturn his brain and fix it back”- for allowing ExxonMobil to loot Guyana and not say anything about it. ExxonMobil stands accused of partnering with Head of the Petroleum Unit, Bobby Gossai Jr. in moving the costs audit from US$214.4 million to US$3 million which has shortchanged Guyana by more than US$211 million.
Warning “that Jadgeo is nothing but a liar, in everything he says and do,” the opposition, APNU+AFC did not escape Lall’s scathing criticism for their “silence and not saying anything of what is taking place.” Lall said he has given up any hope he had for the opposition.
Jagdeo must not be allowed to grant another oil project without fixing and correcting the wrongs he (PPP) has done in Lisa 3, 4 and 5 and in Lisa 1 and 2 under the APNU+AFC government. Jagdeo is “the main culprit, allowing ExxonMobil do so as it please” the Kaieteur News publisher contended.
