OPINION: President Ali and sophisticated investors

Last Updated on Tuesday, 10 October 2023, 7:15 by Denis Chabrol

by GHK Lall

The call of circumstances led me to listen to some more of President Ali’s tirade against former President Ramotar.  It for Mr. Ramotar’s leaning in the direction of renegotiation of the Exxon oil contract.  I wish that a word other than tirade could be employed to describe His Excellency’s presentation, but I cannot, when a diatribe was what he delivered.  I reel at how His Excellency comported himself, where he went, but should have left alone.  One point that he made was about “sophisticated investors”.  I proceed for the edification of Guyana’s wet-behind-the-ears leader, and his constellation of confederates.

Sophisticated investors are entities or individuals that have more money than God, and look for every opening to extend the gap.  They only friend they have is themselves (and their money) ome in the sophisticated investors crowd also believe they have more smarts than God.  Harking back to the president’s awed reference to Exxon as a “superpower” it is clear that when “sophisticated investors” is added to his lexicon that President Ali is starstruck and laboring under a serious handicap that goes by the name of “inferiority complex.”  The fact that those interested in setting up shop in Guyana could routinely qualify for the recognition of “sophisticated investors” should not mean that president and local population diminish themselves to the lot of backwoods people.  Or, in American parlance, hicks from the sticks.  President Ali may be suffering from shellshock brought about by his limited exposure to the “sophisticated investors” set, but Guyanese should not look at them as if they are supermen.  He is welcome to harbor his cultural complexes and disadvantages, but please, sir, leave out those who know these people better, can anticipate their maneuvers better.

“Sophisticated investors” earn this categorization not because of some SEC definition, but because are predatory enough to rise to the top of the money pile.  They know all the tricks in dealing with American and European regulators, how to conquer the competition, and how to outwit dim Third World leaders and countries.  They are powered by greed.  They are voracious in the manner of master predators.  They are money oriented to their eyeballs, and accumulate it by any means.  Without exaggeration, they eat people like President Ali for breakfast, and excrete them a few hours later.  By then, they are ready for the slightly more challenging exercise of lunch, which would be Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, and the same mesmerizing, tricking, consuming following with hizzoner.

They know how to deal with the likes of him, for they have studied what makes leaders such as this former president of Guyana rock and roll, shrivel.  “Sophisticated investors” do their homework, conduct their surveillance, gather their intelligence, and they psychoanalyze the characters of leaders like Dr. Jagdeo.  All this prework is done before a single dollar is invested to determine who and what they are dealing with, their weak spots, how to get them (the locals) to roll out the red carpet for them.  They know which buttons to press on the leaders Guyana have.

Look at how His Excellency went out of his way to impress, to carry on in most unpresidential fashion, as if he was at the Theater Guild.  I observed Excellency Ali at his performing best, as though he was some adrenalized vaudeville ringmaster, while he waxed righteous about “sophisticated investors.”  President Ali delivered his lines, but he tangled his feet.  Not once did he speak about benefits, or what is good, for Guyana.  It was all about investors, and Guyana prostrating itself to welcome them, please them.  This is how the president ducks his foremost priority (Guyana), sucks up to foreign investors, licks at their ears, makes a joke of himself.  He attacks patriotic Guyanese insisting that every effort be made to get Exxon to the renegotiation table, cowers from what he was elected to do, he himself promised to do.

President Ali has to do real work, not make speeches to friendly audiences cannibalizing this land.  Arrange for dossiers to be compiled on “sophisticated investors” who want to do business here.  It is not amateur google search, but recruiting the right agencies to provide Guyana with in-depth reports on companies, principals, and their records.  His experienced Arab friends could be of enormous assistance in this regard.  Also, Excellency Sam Hinds’ job should not be limited to smiling and slapping the flesh.  He should employ unorthodox means (as needed) to put Guyana in a position of power in dealing with the sophisticated reprobates over whom His Excellency is so moonstruck.

Sophisticated Exxon taught this dumb country a lesson.  President Ali, with some courage, self-respect, and authenticity in him would be primed to turn the tables on this corporate predator that drinks Guyana’s blood.  The President should cease giving the impression that he is operating from inside a hole, which makes him look short before these “sophisticated investors.”  He has what they hunger for, so the field is in our favor.  He must leverage that to the hilt.  Sophisticated is a two-way street, Excellency, and the road is ours.  The “sophisticated investors” either want to do business here on our terms, or waiting flights have available seats.