OPINION: We respect sanctity of contract, why not from day one?

Last Updated on Wednesday, 1 January 2025, 13:48 by Writer

by GHK Lall

Guyanese who see anything that is honorable or redemptive in the 2016 Exxon oil contract are neither suitable nor worthy for consideration as a national leader. Nor of continuing to hold office. No one, and I mean anyone from anywhere, who thinks that there is something that equates to sanctity in that odious Exxon contract, could call himself or herself a human being of regard, a man or woman to be trusted. Not my trust, anyway. For what can be found to defend in this vile Exxon contract perceived to be spawned in calumny, and perpetuated by great corporate-political atrocity? This is the background to my ongoing New Year’s messages to the Guyanese people. Expect them to continue well past the end of this season.

“We have made our position very clear that future PSAs, and we have stuck to that and existing PSAs, the sanctity of contract, we respect that. You know this, we have discussed this, many times before.” At first, I said that it couldn’t be the president, but a ventriloquist’s dummy pretending to be President Ali. I have difficulty appreciating how President Ali faces himself in the mirror after saying something so highly unacceptable. I couldn’t; not with something I find so unsavory. How does he stand before Guyanese and tell them with a straight face that he is representing them, doing his utmost for them? Did somebody say that he is running again for high national office later this year? He should seriously consider not running for anything after such an exhibition of leadership indignity, verbal frailty. Committing to “sanctity of contract, and we respect that” is a feeble copout. It is such an obscene one that the president should step down.

If the president didn’t know, somebody should enlighten him. Contracts are rooted in this “sanctity” which he only now conveniently discovers. To get back into office, all kinds of commitments were made by the same president-in-waiting and his senior leadership team, about what they were going to do with that same Exxon contract. Was it unsanctified when the PPP was in opposition, and what made it obtain this new inviolable sanctity? Is there no sense of decency left in this country when men can aspire to high office with promises that they probably may not have (even never) intended to keep to citizens? Thus, I ask: is the only sanctity that matters today, those that involve the white man? Those that are about the white man and his electoral muscle? Is this why Guyana’s President Ali can face Guyanese today, and make believe that he and his PPP group weren’t seriously aiming for the highest honors with the Exxon contract? There is some degree of sanctity in the power of the Guyanese electorate. I am not so sure about their wisdom, but potency, definitely.

For when Guyanese citizens can be so frivolous and enfeebled in their understanding of the power of the polls, and the power in their own hands, then I think they incite desecration of the sanctity that belongs to them. To say differently, they encourage their leaders first to take them for granted and, second, to spit in their faces with this probably Exxon-driven business of “sanctity of contract”. Respecting the Exxon oil contract is disrespecting ourselves in the worst manner possible. No matter how many times the president employs that now stock PPP Government line re “we have discussed this many times before,” there are multiples of those times for the contract to be discussed, its mock sanctity stripped and then trampled upon. Because individually the sanctity of national sovereignty, the sanctity of the Guyanese people, (and sanctity of promises made to citizens) will always conquer the “sanctity of contract” that is Exxon’s latest Frankenstein construction.

For clarity, and for the record, let me be quicksilver clear. Any Guyanese political leader who stands for the Exxon contract, or stands for its sanctity, is not a strong enough person, not a proper citizen, to be running for national office. Nor a suitable enough candidate to considered for so much as one Guyanese vote. Nor an acceptable person for holding any office. This applies to everyone the PPP, the PNC, the AFC, and any new party that shows its face in this year’s general elections. There ought to be a mandatory standard for all candidates. Loyalty to Guyana, or loyalty to Exxon and sanctity of contract? Swear to that oath.

“Sanctity of contract” is President Ali’s ongoing fallback option to evade renegotiation. It is a poor one, more tragic and revealing, than poor. When perspicacity is called for from Guyana’s head of state, he responds with pusillanimity. When conviction and courage are in the highest demand, he convicts himself and hides behind this pathetic refuge of the trembling. What President Ali and his PPP Government parrot as “sanctity of contract.” I stamp on sanctity of contract; I spit on it.