By GHK Lall- So, Guyanese have an oil spill law. After the third word in its name, I turned away. Just as is done with the title of Guyana’s man around national money. I can recognise a fix and a farce in a blink. And a cover story, too. Sifting through the contents confirmed that Guyanese have an oil spill law, but for whom? Here’s the challenge that withstands any test, today or forever: who would be the biggest beneficiary in the event of a spill of proportions? Citizens of this country? Neighbours in the regional arc? Or foreign oil operators?
Who is lighter in protective prospects, who is heavier in the pocket? This newest obscenity delivered under the tunic of law could prove to be costly. Try prevailing against Exxon with a law that is so sparse with legal weapons for locals, so cleverly crafted as to facilitate escape routes. Like national budgets where the private sector has a decisive consultant’s seat, the oil spill law would have had its foreign parallel. Its principals are happy; all that matters.
This oil pollution prevention law is the latest component in a trend that began as early as August 2020. In late August 2020, President Ali took the lead with “transparency and accountability.” His speechwriters were cunning enough to abandon incorruptibility. Too big a bite, too tangible and measurable. Transparency and accountability are what anybody says (claims) they are, or are not. There is President Ali and he hasn’t disappointed. Should Guyanese ever run out of salesmen, there is always the national leader, who is a regiment of them all by himself. His latest sales pitches are “thorough investigation” and “police reform.”
The president has his own metrics of what those are. Optimistic Guyanese will be rewarded with the unrecognizable and unacceptable. An unfazed Ali would still barrel ahead and hail the outcomes of his “thorough investigation” and “police reform.” Listen to him from today: ‘this government promised, this government delivered.
But what? If there still is Cotton Tree with its mysteries, and the Main Street murder (another urban mystery), and others of their bloody lineage, then “thorough investigation” must be a new oxymoron, a fallacy unique to the presidency of Guyana. Oh, and if there are only ‘a few bad cops’ then “police reform” must be eligible for an over-the-top overkill award. It is taking a chainsaw to deal with a small bunch of roaches.
President Ali is usually in his element, his buoyant best, when he is neck-deep in his vacillations and obfuscations, his streams of dissembling and disingenuousness. If he was the only one on the local political prairie, Guyanese could have managed somehow, find some residual trust to invest. But there are others, starting with former president Jagdeo, who in his best Harry Houdini escapade is still the president. I must remember to study that trick some more.
Ask him about the disposition of two lucrative oil blocks, and he hemmed and embroidered, and came up with a complete ballroom gown. ‘no laws were broken.’ I can appreciate a craftsman. And ask him to make good on his party’s commitment to “review and renegotiate” all contracts, and his trump card is ‘there’s a new PSA.’ Guyanese just got a trump that is a joker, and with all of its accompanying value. Doesn’t apply to the Stabroek Basin, which means that those thousands of square kilometers offshore represent American territory, its 51st State.
Push Dr. Jagdeo too hard on oil, contracts, and Exxon, and the bewitching occurs. I think I see a president trying out his best imitations of a punk. Like President Ali, Pres. Jagdeo sees only nitpickers and naysayers, deviationists and undesirables. Under the PPP governance principles, Guyana has moved from a backwater country to a back alley. Anyone who is unfriendly is now stupidee. Ask the originator, the oil liberator.
Then, there is the King Kong of obfuscation, the honourable Attorney General, SC Nandlall. I believe he prefers that to MA Nandlall, so I flatter him. Such is what passes for leadership substance in this oil colony. SC Nandlall can trundle out a truckload of citations to buttress an argument for Exxon. But cannot locate an iota of courage within himself to stand for the welfare of Guyanese.
There are attorney generals, then there are those kinds of attorneys. Douglas MacArthur was that kind of American general, until he collapsed under the weight of his flashiness and emptiness. Jagdeo is the author, Ali is the seller, and Nandlall the court executioner. A practitioner of rarity, indeed; one who can spell every letter in the law, but one who has no spirit in him. This is Guyana’s holy trinity. Like the Holy Roman Empire, it is rather shabby.
So, Guyanese are now the proud owners of an oil pollution prevention, oil spill, whatever. Guyanese are their own, their existence that cheap. Somebody just hosed them with a shower of yellow rain. In other parts of the world, there is acid rain. From Ali, Jagdeo, and Nandlall, Guyanese are now doused with yellow rain. Samples should be sent to any private laboratory. Or Miami.
