Jesus and Jagdeo

Sep 01, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths by GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – I hasten to reassure everyone that neither blasphemy nor sacrilege is intended in that grouping of Jesus and Jagdeo.  For clarity, it is Jesus Bronchalo of Fulcrum, LNG nee Exxon, and not the Jesus of sacred texts.  I am sure Mr. Bronchalo wouldn’t mind, while I remind every Guyanese that no one is far gone (so out of sorts) that there is not a place for him or her in Jesus’s sacred heart.  Bharrat Jagdeo qualifies; I recommend him.  The wish is that I could say the same thing with this gas monetization gizmo involving Lone Ranger Jesus Bronchalo and the PPP Government, which automatically means Jagdeo.  A little context would smooth the path ahead.

According to Jagdeo, Exxon is not interested in gas money.  Nice one, Boss Bharrat.  The day that the likes of Woods and Routledge lose interest in a dollar, that is the day when I stop believing in God.  Since Exxon had bigger priorities than gas, it made no commercial sense for all that post reinjection gas to be lying around out there idly.  Enter Chief Commercial Officer of Exxon Guyana, Mr. Jesus Bronchalo.  After 19 years he slips out of Exxon’s grasp and spins this spoof about Fulcrum, LNG.  Then, miracle of miracles, out of 17 gas thoroughbreds bidding for Guyana’s gas money action, Mr. Jesus Bronchalo beats off all challengers and sticks his nose for the winner’s garland to be hung around his neck.  How about that for odds?  Or a fix?  Somebody just tied another noose around Guyana’s neck.  For that is one hell of a gassy story, and it only takes two men of the spectacular caliber of Jesus and Jagdeo to come with a contraption like this (Fulcrum LNG) that was a winner from the day it jumped out of somebody’s head.

Now I don’t know how smart Mr. Bronchalo is, but I know something else.  In Guyana, there is none smaatah than Vice President Jagdeo.  Seeing that I have appointed myself Commissioner for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in Guyana (not Saudi Arabia), it is my teary-eyed duty to peel the onion.  In all the many conversations that Oil and Gas Viceroy Jagdeo had to have had with Exxon, gas had to come up and Mr. Jesus in his capacity as Chief Commercial Officer had to be present in a few of them.  Exxon is not interested (so we hear) but cha-ching, Bronchalo gets a great big Yankee idea.  With a name like his, he may be of Central or Latin American or Castilian origins, but when gas is the game and money is the name, then Mr. Bronchalo is as American as American can be.  Who came up with the Bronchalo-Fulcrum contrivance first is not my business. But Guyanese should know one thing from long experience that when something appears out of the blue and it is shrouded in mist, then Jagdeo’s footprints and palm prints are usually around.  Some precedents should help, and I am sure that a fine practitioner name Mr. Anil Nandlall should have a briefcase full.

Remember Fip Motielall (no relation).  He gets a mechanical jackass cart and call it a bulldozer around some godforsaken outpost called Amaila Falls and walked away smirking with millions of US.  Who was his sponsor and how clean and clear was his story?  Skip across town to the Berbice Bridge (the existing one) and what was the secret sauce there, and whose brainchild?  Once again, Guyanese got a political shaft straight up the colon.  Fast forward the clock and parachute into Wales, and there is a US$2B gas-to-shore dream, which is already shaping up to be a dark nightmare for Guyanese. As an additional bonus of enlightenment, I throw in the Kaieteur and Canje oil blocks that slipped out of Guyana’s hands in the darkness of night and to men who if they tumbled into crude oil would swear that it is molasses.  Now if anybody around here is so stupid to conclude that the liberating of those oil blocks was the great Donald Ramotar and the still greater maneuverer Bobby Persaud’s brainwave, then they are stupider than me, and I am not that stupid.  Now it’s time for the punch line.

In each of these randomly selected high-profile developments or big-ticket projects there were some common threads.  For starters, there was a long string of closely guarded secrets.  Second, there were some strange-fly-by-night characters around these projects, who appeared out of nowhere.  Third, they became the sweethearts of different PPP Governments (which meant one leading man only).  Fourth, there was always big money involved, the quiet and covered down kind.  And fifth, here is the trump of trumps: President Jagdeo, former president Jagdeo, and Vice President Jagdeo was always in close attendance and hung like a heavy shadow over all proceedings.  Either as arranger and conductor, or as problem solver and decision maker. Thus: the latest superstar to grace these shores is the wonderfully named Jesus Bronchalo.  Amen, I say; amen.

Here is a little postscript to keep everybody on their toes.  If there is any Guyanese who thinks that Exxon is so satisfied with its haul from Guyana, that it has washed its hands from the gas monetization picture, then they really belong back on the sugar plantations and rice fields. Now let the Jesus and Jagdeo Show begin.  To use Yankee slang, it should be a gas.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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• Fulcrum, GHK Lall, Jagdeo, Jesus Bronchalo, LNG

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