OPINION: NRF withdrawals—what’s the problem with specifics?

Last Updated on Sunday, 8 December 2024, 17:32 by Writer

By GHK Lall

The PPP Government withdrawals from Guyana’s oil fund have an addiction. Like any chronic addiction, withdrawal can be a bad mother. This is the boat in which the government has put itself into, leading to the nation’s top oilman paddling about.

Nonetheless, I have some good news for my best friend, the illustrious Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo. He has just joined even more illustrious company; it is that versatile and sagacious trio from GECOM in the year 2020. Nice try, Mr. Jagdeo. Really, a man of his proven prowess for, ah, mechanics, ought to have known better. Frequently, those who think that they are smarter than everybody else, only succeed in making themselves look soggy and a tad silly.

There is no reason for Dr. Jagdeo to embarrass himself by playing the jester. He took the routine and made a ragbag out of it, the patrimony money and made it profane. All the while, he keeps up the appearance of being a leader dedicated to the profound. The GECOM trio turned and twisted and tried over and over again with their pretense at the pure. Dr. Jagdeo is telling the Guyanese people that providing specifics on the spending of oil money withdrawals is the equivalent of squaring the circle. Specifics would require more than Excel; an Einstein and a Euclid are required. How dumb does Mr. Jay think that Guyanese are? How much self-respect has he lost, this low watermark to which he condemns himself (he not me), when he engages in this verbal sword-fencing? Verbal sword-fencing is divine, but oil projects ringfencing is not so fine; good one, Boss Jay.

To avoid breaking down hundreds of billions in oil money withdrawals, the Vice President of Oil took Guyanese around the world in 15 minutes, and gave them a geography and history lesson. It was when he made a pitstop by the Balkans. The Balkans of all places, Mr. Vice President? Oh lawd! Is confusion in de town. What is so very difficult with splitting off the oil cash from an omnibus account and placing the billions in a subaccount? What could be a better confirmation to the Guyanese people that the PPP Government is a genuinely transparent one, and that he himself is dedicated unswervingly to accountability?

Show the owners of the Natural Resources Fund (NRF) bank account from which the withdrawals are made the specifics of how the money is allocated and accounted for, and few would be the Guyanese who could have a beef. I would laud and applaud. Give me something to go, my quarrelsome brother. He made me laff the other day. According to Dr. Jagdeo, announcing that x billions are moved from the NRF and makes its circuitous way through the National Assembly budgetary process and so forth is transparency. Sorry, sir, that is short of the mark by a wide country mile. He knows that, but is so bent on mucking up matters that he cannot help himself. The question is why go to these lengths, when there should be no commingling of oil money, which facilitates decent (principled) accounting. I recommend consultation with Exxon’s Alistair Routledge who swears about his company’s world class accounting systems.

Since I have dragged Exxon into this oil withdrawal mess, neither Woods nor Routledge can be too pleased with Dr. Jagdeo and his posture on NRF withdrawals. When there is murkiness surrounding the oil money that Exxon has faithfully deposited on time all the time, and Guyanese rage for specifics relative to its withdrawals and utilizations, the company could do without those highlight reels from Jagdeo. Think of it this way: when Guyanese clamor about where the oil money went, the next step is to say that it is too little, and the finger is pointed right back at Exxon. Show Guyanese the money, share with them how it is spent, and stop another unnecessary confrontation dead in its tracks. It would take the heat away from Exxon.

On another note, the Guyanese people also have many grave misgivings about corruption in infrastructure spending. Allocate it from the budget and the PPP relocates it to their budget. Lots of this year’s budget money has ended up there. It may be traditional to tamper with borrowed money and tax money, but not the sacred oil money of the people. Blending it rather slickly with regular money may help feed all the countless doubts about how poorly and unaccountably, this government, over which Dr. Jagdeo presides, oversees Guyanese money. Please, oh please, Mr. Vice President, if there’s one set of money that should be left untouched, let it be the peeple li’l aile monee. Account for it, provide the specifics about it, be transparent with it. Let peace prevail.