There is this problem. Politicians make huge promises. When they can’t deliver on time, or within the stated price, the games begin. Covering up is one. Abusing media houses and commentators comes second. Selectivity with developments, or twisting related narratives, or skimping on transparency are others. The PPP Govt and its spokespeople know that they have many assets lined up. The biggest is that the people don’t care, hence there is zero accountability, so there’s disrespect and readiness to repeat. Repeat promises involving eye-watering projects, trick citizens again, and live to laff over rich successes.
Pres. Ali loudly claims to be about transparency and accountability. Then, there is that US$102 million arbitration award to Lindsayca Guyana Inc., that’s a dead body a stray dog dragged into public view. The PPP Govt didn’t reveal that award, but concealed the loss. I think that this one instance alone clashes with any claims about transparency and accountability. Ultimately, the Guyanese people are the payers of that US$102 million burden; an extra one that came about from site stability ignorance, and political recklessness, among other factors.
How much different would leadership be, and getting some way with clean governance be attained, if from the highest level of government, there is admission that neglect led to failure, and that the price is US$102 million? Naturally, politics doesn’t work like this. But, dodge with one project and one set of circumstances that must be hidden, then a standard is set for others. Speaking about what was paid or not paid accrues to the credit of senior politicians. But only when they do so openly and fully, with nothing held back, nothing shaved off. With nothing slipped into the mix, like some laced and tainted liquor cocktail that has appalling consequences later.
Vice President Jagdeo is the leader who is the godfather of this US$2 billion Wales gas project. I commend him for his brainchild; think that it has potential to be a gamechanger and difference-maker for chronically energy-thirsty Guyanese. But commendation is conditional: everything is on the table, from supporting studies to the financing and the financial savings. Who wouldn’t applaud half-priced electricity and, perhaps almost as important, a reliable supply of it? But provide the wishy-washy for details, accentuate the positives (price and supply), and embark helter-skelter with probably ulterior objectives in mind, then there is nothing to give backing to, or applaud.
I think, and I call upon, Dr. Jagdeo to face the nation and report to it, what went wrong, where matters stand, and what the proposed remedial steps are. Abusing the independent press only serves to make real professionals more determined. With respect to Prime Minister Phillips, he is seen as one pushed into the role of unready proxy to answer questions that he can’t, and to disclose details about which he has little leeway. No less humbly, I insist that since the US$2 billion Wales gas baby is the love child of Vice President Jagdeo, then he is the one on whose head ownership lands, and from whose mouth a straight and clean update should flow.
When powerful pols in the mold of Drs. Ali and Jagdeo see the media as its enemy, and recoil from it, then I submit that they are seeing Guyana as their enemy and recoiling from them. Enemies are normally feared and hated; people that have to be watched at all times. Sensitive issues have to be hidden from them. There has to be circling around them, keeping them at a distance, the farther the better.
Thus, when this single example of US$102 million hidden, concealed, kept, slipped around, and disguised, from the Guyanese people, that equates to not trusting them, not believing that they can be understanding of errors, not joyful at being treated as a trusted partner in a journey that must be made, notwithstanding the mistakes that are made. Of course, there’s a limit to good faith. When the other route (hostility, assaults) is preferred, then more have to be hidden, and more suspicions about how sinister the PPP Govt is finds fertile ground.
How much easier to confess that stability was a problem, and the price for that error is US$102 million. The people paying has a right to know. Political leaders have a duty to account.
