Oil money – tangles, twists and torments

Dec 08, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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…Hard Truths

By GHK Lall

 Kaieteur News- When the choice is made to travel the long, dark road that is unknown, there comes that time when the way is, sometimes, lost.  For when that man or woman thinks they are walking in a straight line, the hard fact is that the path is twisted and potholed, rocky and treacherous.  Full of dangers, it is.  The man or woman may have deceived themselves, pretend or insist, that it is not so.  Meanwhile, others may have been misled into believing so.  The latter group could be about blind faith expressed, notwithstanding what the eye and the mind are confirming.  Meanwhile, the world recognizes that road chosen for what it is in its length and breadth: twisted and distorted in many places.  There is nothing philosophical about this; it is what many know from their own experiences, from harmful reality.

I think that a notorious German from another even more perilous era said this better: begin with a deception, then deception becomes the only road left to follow.  The deceptions don’t just multiply, they must multiply.  I am thinking of where Guyanese find themselves today with their precious little oil money.  Where is the truth about it?  What are its truths, if any?  From the moment that the cleverness of “national development priorities” was heard, it was recognized for the monstrosities that were going to be housed under its roof.  Time and circumstances have now proven so, haven’t they?  Look at how twisted the narratives about NRF withdrawals have become, how tortured it has become for those who man it to speak cleanly about those checks written against the NRF, so to speak.

Oh, they did everything with flair and furious energy, and fullness in its parliamentary revision and forced midnight passage.  At least, the political architects thought so.  Oftentimes, the best is too smart for their own good.  That sneaking around and signing of the revised law like the biblical thief in the night was the first clue of the self-serving plans already finalized, the stream of sordid developments to come.  The people of Guyana need to know, must know, how their oil dollars are spent.  Three quarters of those dollars are currently snatched right off the top, right before Guyanese get to touch and taste one penny from their patrimony.  There are some secrets shrouding about what specifically were those American billions were spent.  The first ones withheld from Guyanese.  Now those first secrets involving oil dollars (expenses) are now succeeded by another set of secrets about hundreds of billions of Guyanese dollars taken out from the NRF.  According to those standing in husbandry over the NRF, the spending of withdrawals from it is a mystery, one to which there is neither clue nor key.

Are Guyanese to accept that there are no men and women of real caliber in this country who can unravel the tangle of those withdrawals that came so easily, so deliciously?  They were such fun during the times when the NRF taps were opened full blast.  Now come the hangovers, the reckonings for the splurges and what could very well be a carnival of corruption.  Now that there must be some accounting, there are these verbal sleights of hand, and sixes for nine, and pigs in a poke all kneaded into one.  An unschooled market vendor counts what comes in and what goes out.  He or she is being honest with self, transparent for small dollars that be just a few thousands and nothing more.  It is for the children; they must not be made to suffer.  More importantly, the greatest care must be exercised so that they are not cheated by honest error, or deliberate deviousness.

Seven billion was set aside in the 2024 budget for what looks to a stupid fellow like me to be ‘miscellaneous.’  Of course, a brilliant sounding label like “measures to be determined after consultations…” was found to slap on it.  Do Guyanese know anything about the disposition of that $7 billion [for sundries], now that the year is drawing to a close?  One may look away, even allow themselves to be persuaded or overpowered, since it is only a measly $7 billion.  But the same can and should never be permitted for hundreds of billions of oil money withdrawn from that Guyanese retirement fund, that rainy day safety deposit canister known as the NRF.  The question for all Guyanese (minus those that had a good time with NRF withdrawals) is how could such a large sum be such a problem, such a torment, to detail the specifics of its uses.  I could settle for broad specifics, as in so much for this and so much for something else.  There is little that should be intolerable about what is being asked re those NRF withdrawals.  It is more than about good governance, or good overseership, or good accounting.  It is about the kind of good leadership character that guarantees the brightest transparency.

In closing out this seemingly crippling manmade NRF situation, a man of truth is usually prompted to be honest with himself.  He takes stock, admits his predicament, and seeks help out of the deep hole in which he inadvertently trapped himself.  Honest mistake, honest efforts at self-correction, restoring some semblance of honest balance.  On the other hand, a citizen, who is less inclined to the straight and simple way, is left with only one choice: continue as before, in the hope that the thick darkness will protect, however imperfectly.  Perhaps, what is most appropriate in Guyana’s NRF circumstances is that timeless truth from Sir Walter Scott: “Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive…”  Guyanese can say goodbye to NRF money.

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

(Oil money – tangles, twists and torments)

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• Guyanese dollars, hard truths, NRF withdrawals, Oil money – tangles, twists and torments

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