The Mighty Sparrow offered the most creative explanations for philandering in his classic hit, “Lying excuses” putting to shame Shaggy’s steadfast denials years later, “It Wasn’t Me.”
“De two thousand dollars ah give to she, Was to buy a sandwich and a coffee” the veteran Calypso King of the World suavely assured his long-suffering partner in the compelling 1987 composition, insisting his acts “as a nice guy” were all altruistic. Acknowledging that “Troublemakers will spread rumours for confusion,” the Trinidadian-raised singer who turns 84 next Tuesday, soothed “Maggy,” with “Just be trusting and don’t dig nothing, Try and understand” for “Darling you I’ll never deceive” so “There is no need to disbelieve.”
Taking his stage name from the simpering slacker featured in the animated television series, “Scooby-Doo” the Jamaican-born artiste Shaggy developed his signature dancehall vocals in between serving as an American Marine in Operation Desert Storm in Iraq. He would admit to an interviewer, “When you live in a place like Flatbush, Brooklyn, and you’re trying to get a job, life is hard. I kept checking into jobs and kept getting knocked down, so I checked myself into the one I could get, and that was the Marines.”
A Honolulu deejay with sharp ears, Pablo Sato downloaded Shaggy’s album “Hot Shot” from a Napster-like site before it was officially released and discovered the standout cut was the salacious number with the “hilarious” hook line “It Wasn’t Me.” Soto played the single on island radio and the phone lines lit up, with the song slowly building up to national and then international success. Shaggy’s hit duet featured him listening to pal Ricardo “RikRok” Ducent’s tale of being caught in flagrante delicto by a girlfriend. He advised “RikRok” to deny everything and “Tell her it wasn’t you” which Ducent does with the notorious one-line repeat denial, “It wasn’t me.”
Stabroek News just reported one of Guyana’s political ‘hotshots,’ Minister of Natural Resources Raphael Trotman absolved himself of any responsibility for not expressing sooner that the lack of ring-fencing provisions in the Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) with ExxonMobil’s (XOM) subsidiary could negatively affect the country’s projected revenue from upcoming oil operations.
This followed a recent statement from a visiting International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission when for the first time Government expressed related concerns about the glaring omission from the renegotiated pact it signed with Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL), for the lucrative 6.6 million acres Stabroek Block. The American multinational has found an initial 13 operable wells offshore. Three were announced earlier this year, taking the estimated recoverable resources to more than five billion barrels of oil equivalent. Guyana’s first commercial oil well is expected to provide up to 120,000 barrels per day by early 2020, and with many others expected, some analysts predict production could even exceed a million (M) barrels daily over the next decade.
“My only comment is that as a non-technical person, I was not the one to negotiate the contract, and that, at all material times, I acted on the advice and direction of the GGMC, (Guyana Geology and Mines Commission)” Trotman said.
“How could I see something as an indictment on myself if I didn’t draft it? I relied on the officers at GGMC at all times and was advised when the agreement was ready for signature,” Trotman declared when asked if he felt that given that he is an attorney and was minister responsible for the sector at the time of the signing, that he should have let the President and Cabinet know about such an absence.
Ring-fencing is a common industry limitation on consolidation of income and deductions for tax purposes across different projects undertaken by the same taxpayer. In countries such as the United Kingdom, companies are subject to special corporation tax rules and a higher corporation tax rate, for their upstream oil and gas profits. These regulations are designed to prevent companies reducing their ring fence profits with reliefs and allowances from other activities. The main restrictions are that such losses and expenses, either within the company or accruing to an affiliate, cannot be deducted against ring fence profits.
Days ago, former Petroleum Advisor to the Government, Dr. Jan Mangal hammered the coalition administration for how much was lost when it renegotiated the PSA with ExxonMobil and accepted a mere US$18 million in a secret signing bonus. He pointed to the Canadian oil company Frontera’s recent private payment of a US$33 million signing bonus to CGX Energy for a 33.3% working interest in two blocks offshore Guyana without any confirmed commercial quantities of oil.
“Please remember there was already 1.4 billion barrels of oil confirmed when Guyana accepted the pittance of US$18 million for a signing bonus, the pittance of less than 2% royalty, and forfeited billions in tax,” Mangal told SN pointing to the zero corporate tax rate ExxonMobil benefits from.
“In Brazil there was no confirmed oil, but Exxon paid a signing bonus of close to US$1 billion. And our politicians continue to forfeit tax on other blocks, even this year,” Mangal lamented. He observed that Guyana should also re-examine oil blocks given to other small firms like Ratio and Mid-Atlantic Oil and Gas since the owners will reap hefty monetary rewards when they farm out portions of their blocks.
“These little speculators like CGX, Ratio, and Mid-Atlantic…are never good for a country. Whenever you see those getting blocks, you know the country is being royally screwed,” he said, using a verb that Sparrow and Shaggy would certainly understand.
Guyana’s previous President Donald Ramotar, this week too, was granted an injunction against the Kaieteur media group for defamation and injury following articles and broadcasts.
Shortly before the national elections in May, 2015 which his party lost following 23 years in power, Ramotar signed off on the controversial award of areas in the Canje block to inexperienced operators, JHI Associates and Mid-Atlantic, now under official investigation, maintaining his actions were guided by the then Natural Resources Minister, Robert Persaud. Last month the former President stated that he believed Persaud should make a public statement on the matter, after admitting to the newspaper in 2018 “the buck stops with me,” and “I know it looks suspicious, but I thought we would have won the elections anyhow and that it was just the continuation of an already started process from 2013.”
Denying prior knowledge of XOM’s first oil find prompted a dash to grab the blocks, Ramotar stressed: “I was not given any other information, just a vague response about a week before the election, from Exxon. The impression I got was they were not ready to make the announcement (of the oil find) because they were not clear but that it just looks good. They were not very explicit with me.”
Ramotar insisted in June that he had not believed that he would lose the 2015 General Elections, although he was forced to call the polls early because of the threat of a No-Confidence Motion. “I never thought we would lose the election. I still think the election was screwed up against me in the first instance… At the time, I didn’t consider I was doing anything wrong morally or otherwise, even now. I clear(ed) up my desk of things and those things were pending for more than a year.”
American writer, Josh Levin coined the term, “The Shaggy Defense” in a piece for online magazine “Slate,” defining it as a legal strategy in which the defendant refuses to admit guilt despite overwhelming evidence. In that case covered by Levin, the rhythm and blues musician R.Kelly denied being in an incriminating child sex tape and was later acquitted. As Sparrow puts it, “After all meh go help mehself, Is too much conquer and confusion, And ah know to mehself I am an innocent man.”
ID recalls commentator’s Chris Hayes accusations against British Petroleum (BP) of using the “Shaggy defense” over their refusal to accept responsibility for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
