By GHK Lall- The question was about “rampant mismanagement”. Alleged of the PPP Govt. The questioner was from Al-Jazeera. The answer was an embarrassment. A national leader dismantling himself before an international audience.
Whether the Opposition Leader is sanctioned by the U.S. or not, of what bearing is that to the question about allegations of “rampant mismanagement of Guyana’s massive oil wealth by the PPP Govt? For argument sake, let’s say that the sanctions and charges are all found to have basis, with penalties following. How does that dilute or dismiss allegations of “rampant mismanagement” of Guyana’s resources by the PPP Govt? Mismanagement can be, sometimes, linked to inefficiency and incompetency.
But rampant mismanagement also introduces elements of thievery, on a premediated, unprecedented scale. Rampant seeds that condition. New oil wealth has a history of inciting those in power to that state of thievery. Third World countries top that category. From all indications, Guyana under the PPP Govt hasn’t escaped that corruption curse. In many respects, that was the thrust of the question and questioner from Al-Jazeera. Most regrettably, Guyana’s president chose that moment to make himself into a monumental global spectacle.
Incredibly, he mistook Al-Jazeera for friendly, prepped, and captive Guyana State media. To evade the question, Pres Ali represented a case of dancing feet. Sanctioned Opp Leader. To suppress the answer that would have revealed so much, Pres Ali deflected. Sanctioned Opp Leader. In Guyana, Pres Ali would get by with that deviation, where cooperative media winks and nods. Not Al-Jazeera, though. Despite the name, there’s no kind and compassionate Muslim Brotherhood there; only zealous pursuit of facts and truths.
Worldwide, that’s what a hardworking, pressuring, Opposition does. It holds the feet of government leaders to the fire. It’s how they keep the government honest. Rampant mismanagement speaks to a serially dishonest government. And what does a pathologically corrupt government do? It tries to shelter itself from hard questions and principled inquirers, through the employment of four tactics summarized in four words. Dodge. Deflect. Deviate. Distort.
The Opp Leader operating under U.S. sanctions projected all four of those tactics and words. It is highly likely that potential investors absorbing Guyana’s Pres Ali wrestled with one question of their own: is it okay to do business with a government that resorts to slippery evasions? Existing investors, starting with the likes of Exxon, must have cringed at how Guyana’s Ali minimized himself into the unmentionable. The big time demands a big leader with a big brain print. What the world was privileged to see in color and live TV was a shadow working overtime to put distance from itself. Body language that didn’t just speak for itself, but what left a trail.
Convincing himself that he had dodged a meteor, Pres Ali then plunged headlong into self-made quicksand. Oil money management. Transparency in unmatched ascendancy. Accounting for oil billions spent. Processes. Auditors. What processes, when not one billion, nor even one dollar could be said with clarity and authority to have been spent on this specific project? And yielded these results?
Relative to auditors and audits, both have been greeted with salvos of skepticism and dismissal. Handpicked allies. Selective scopes. Sanitized reports. And, after all of that effort, reviews and dissections of those reports still have to be delayed in parliament. Financial shenanigans and skullduggeries trickily kept away from the probing eyes and honest scrutiny of the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee. Parliament locked down for months. Its Public Accounts Committee locked out from doing its work. In Pres Ali’s exuberant mind, all of that qualifies as transparency with Guyanese oil money. It’s the heart of “rampant mismanagement”, a polite euphemism for runaway corruption.
Last, it’s one matter for Citizen Irfaan Ali to deliver a global comedy show. It’s quite another for Irfaan Ali, Guyana’s head-of-state to reveal to the world what’s in his head. And leave it unamused and unimpressed, and universally disgusted.
