OPINION: Jagdeo can fabricate fallacies, but facts always stand supreme

Last Updated on Saturday, 27 January 2024, 17:29 by Denis Chabrol

By GHK Lall

I must deal with Vice President Jagdeo frontally. I had taken the different road of holding my peace, under advisement. Now, in the light of his most recent fabrications, allusions, and delusions, I present him with the facts. I challenge him to manifest how much character he has inside to deal with straight facts, and deal with them straight up.

Thursday last, Jagdeo held his usual press conference. A few snippets were shared with me on Friday. My name featured. The Vice President fictions were: 1) they call me corrupt, but I don’t bother with them, that doesn’t change me; 2) they want to chase investors away; 3) he claimed that he was a former Wall Street analyst, then that disappeared; 4) he said something about working on Wall Street, but….; and 5) “I hear rumors that he is a pedophile…” but I leave that alone. This is Bharrat Jagdeo, a former Head of State, now Vice President: a leader that manufactures his own truths and inferences, a man peddling and huckstering the only things that he knows: skillful deceptions, sleaze, and what reduces him to new lows whenever his twisted mind is engaged, whenever he opens his mouth.

Now for the facts, and only the facts. I challenge Jagdeo to deal with them, respond to them without his usual hedging, dissembling, and prevaricating.

I have never called Bharrat Jagdeo corrupt, despite misgivings. Irresponsible, it would have been, and improper also. I made that crystal clear in what was written for public consumption (Demerara Waves, KN, January 14th and 19th respectively). When Su-Gate broke, I wrote very early right here that he must be given every benefit of the doubt. Perhaps, he forgot, didn’t matter. The pages speak, newsprint and archival ink does not erase. Facts are facts.

Then, they want to chase away investors. For the information of all, especially Jagdeo, absorb what follows. I have an investment connection to Exxon, and other US companies here. They make money, I get a penny. That’s a fact. It is a fact also that I have petitioned, pressed and pressured for a little less for Exxon et al, a bit more for Guyanese. I will manage. Chasing investors from Guyana, brother Jagdeo, would be cutting my own nose. Don’t fabricate fallacies, what have flaws and failures embedded throughout.

Next, Jagdeo sniped at ‘former Wall Street Analyst’ that became nothing. There is no avoiding some disclosures. I was a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charter holder. It is a qualification that few, if any, resident Guyanese possess. A little while after returning to Guyana, I discontinued paying the annual three-figure fee (US dollars), its relevance was over. Expense management. In discontinuing paying the CFA fees, it would have been a breach of CFA conventions to go on claiming analyst status. I have never used the analyst designation since. Plain and simple, Dr. Jagdeo, those are the facts. Do whatever pleases.

Further, aspersions came from Jagdeo about ‘working on Wall Street, but….’. I move to remove his doubt, real or pretended. In 20 years on Wall Street, 10 regulatory credentials became mine by dint of hard study and application. Unconfirmed reports were that I was among the most licensed, if not top licensed, Wall Streeter from around 400,000 workers. True or overblown, these facts are incontestable: the registers of top Wall Street oversight agencies (New York Stock Exchange and the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and others) house the facts and truths. Facts about principal qualifications in Futures, Financial Operations, Derivatives, US Government Securities, and Investment Advisor. Here is a tiny fact: it cost the firms I worked for over US$25,000 annually to carry those credentials, my condition of association. Since brother Jagdeo has been digging for dirt on me, he should put his sleuths to work. The facts are there.

Finally, Vice President Jagdeo went low, so low that he has to reach up to touch the bottom, but still cannot. “I hear rumors that he is a pedophile…” But he is not going to go there. He just did. This is what a former president, a present Vice President, of the most talked about country globally deals in: what he “hears” and “rumors.” It is to smear and silence a dissenter, a conscientious objector, to how he presides over the oil, on which poor Guyanese place so much hope. Apparently, Jagdeo is proud to be Vice President of Rumors. Jagdeo is the new Chief Policymaker on distortions and deceptions. There is one response to Jagdeo’s demonization and criminalization. Give the evidence to AG Nandlall, the DPP’s Hack, Top Cop Hicken, and Crime Chief Blanhum. They should charge. Jagdeo delivers or defaces himself. Fact: two and a half years ago, Jagdeo’s comrades came up with what they thought would zip my lips, freeze my pen, and put a stop to the tormenting truths inflicted on party and government (Jagdeo). Two and a half years later, here I stand, I cannot do otherwise, brother Jagdeo. I should curse Jagdeo. I pray for a cure for him. Thus, the facts are.