Renegotiation – one big Guyana laff story

Feb 01, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths…

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News-I had to laugh.  Poor Minister Vickram Bharrat: he always seems to end up with some dirty job that seniors drop in his lap.  Take this one about renegotiation of the Exxon oil contract.  Out of the blue, the PPP Government is taking the PNC opposition to task and on renegotiation of all things.  While the PPP Government has burrowed deep underground to put as much distance between renegotiation of the Exxon deal and itself, it now turns around and fires a broadside at the PNC for what it is doing (or not doing) with that same contract.  Is Guyana a mad, mad, extremely mad world, or what?

The venue was parliament and Minister Vickram got the call to lay into the PNC during what passes for Budget debates.  I never thought that he was capable of certain skills, but he went and proved me wrong.  He changed into Warner Bros, in a fair rendition of one its more storied cartoons.  The unimaginable took place.  For there was Minister Bharrat referring to Tom and Jerry (of cartoon fame) and slapping the PNC silly with his scornful cat and mouse putdown.  Where was the PNC, the minister asked?  Where is it on renegotiation of the oil contract?  After that slash, it all boiled down to the usual dressing down, putting down, and a general dumbing down of the standards of local discourse in Guyana’s leading house of disorder, through mindless talking for the sake of talking.  Not for the first time, some kind-hearted, well-intentioned Guyanese invited me to accompany them to listen to the budget debate(s) live and direct.  I recoiled, for I would sooner spend an afternoon and evening by the torturous and dangerous bus park than put a foot into Guyana’s house of the people.  There are people, and then there are other kinds of people.  The parliamentary hood went the way of Pompeii and Atlantis a long while back.  Down and out on its feet, merely going through the motions (but more on this another time).

In reading what Minister Bharrat articulated in the National Assembly, I recall that old domestic goody: some folks know everybody story, but dem nah know dem own waan.  When the subject is about renegotiation, there is not another entity, or body, that has not been more for renegotiation, and then less about renegotiation, than the Government.

When I think of Minister Bharrat’s dive into the world of cartoons and Tom and Jerry, it is clear that he did a miserable job at looking inward and upward within his PPP Government.  Look at what oil has done to him, he being the subject minister with this and that power.  Instead of being the subject minister, the Hon. Vickram Bharrat has been more pleased to be a voiceless subject of Bharrat Jagdeo first and, then to round off his piteous weakness, the helpless subject of one Alistair Routledge and Exxon Corp America.

Come to think of it, so pathetic Minister Bharrat has been on oil and gas specifically, and with not a word to offer on renegotiation of the Exxon contract, that he is more along the lines of a shadow minister.  A minister and a man in a haze, and maze of contradictions.  When he thinks of renegotiation, the only thought that comes to his mind is retreat.  In this manner, he does a not too shabby imitation of the other two wunderkinds in the PPP Government, Dr. Irfaan Ali, and Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, two men who have made cartoon characters of themselves through their comical postures on renegotiation.

In the PNC’s hesitancies on renegotiation, Minister Bharrat likened the group to Tom and Jerry.  In the PPP Government’s foot-dragging and stonewalling on renegotiation, I behold in President Ali and Vice President Jagdeo, those two unmatched cartoon characters, Daffy Duck and Yosemite Sam.  One loses his spine and puts his foot into mouth (sanctity of contract), while the other cannot distinguish night from day (better contract management).  They were once all sizzling lightning for ‘review and renegotiating’ all contracts, until they quickly petered out into unlit candles lacking in wicks.  When renegotiation of the Exxon contract was all the rage, there was none louder and more muscular than Dr. Ali a la that hapless carton reveller Daffy Duck.  In the same context, there was none bolder than Dr. Jagdeo doing well as the Guyanese reincarnation of Yosemite Sam.  Jagdeo has converted into the tragedy of thinking that conscientious and patriotic Guyanese are the enemy, and Exxon is his passport to power and more rewarding achievements constructed along certain curvy lines.

In this oil paradise, the PPP Government is now the leading joker.  Renegotiation has reduced the party to comedy and pity.  Renegotiation has made its leaders concoct one calumny after another to duck their duty.  Thus, they stand as raucous figures fighting on the side of Exxon and proud of their efforts that impoverish expectant Guyanese.  Guyana has been transformed into a jokey country.  Guyanese have the political leaders to prove it.  Renegotiation has made them lose their minds.  Renegotiation converts them to wily phantoms and goofy characters straight out of the funny farms.  (The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of this newspaper.)

(Renegotiation – one big Guyana laff story)

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• Budget debates, Exxon deal, Exxon oil contract, hard truths, PNC

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