Dear Editor,
In the grand scheme of the great oil game and Guyana’s entry into that exclusive territory, ancestral lands and small landholders really don’t count for much. So, also what is said, what is done, and what was really meant, if anything principled at all. In SN’s editorial of October 14 titled “A sordid tale” many revelations were shared that confirm how much everything matters, and what may or not be interrelated to the same burgeoning local oil grandeur. I detect a tale of doubletalk, doubletake, and then doubling down. Indeed, all Guyana has become a casino of the curly and twisty, and the so ugly; the cast of characters are a lovely bunch, a testimony to the sewer that rises daily in this domestic bailiwick. A rising tide does lift all boats, but exclude me, please. No boats here, I’m boarding a plane.
I heard of this creature we call an NDC, which has to be some space agency. There is nothing neighbourly, or of democratic ideals, or even that which reflects the wisdom of a council that has been schooled in the fine, now rare arts of integrity and honesty. There is a storied Guyanese commercial company to which was attached that rousing sobriquet ‘Honest John’ from its annals, but clearly there is a new meaning where that is concerned that can be affixed to both company and modern captains. For 143.1 acres of land, doesn’t amount to such a big fish to fry in the rippling, swarming, Guyana pond of today. Speak straight, talk truth, and there is no need for all this see-sawing, squaring the circle, and rounding of edges that are now frayed and fulsome in their tomfooleries. Of words that em-body no significance, other than to borrow SN’s word, the sordid.
Either there is an interest, or there isn’t. Either it has been separated from, or there is still skin in the game. Then get ready to battle with those who feel cheated, instead of pretending to be a friend of those who could do without certain kinds of friends. On each occasion that the company people open mouth, the twisted escapes. Then, there are these twists in the shabby saga of land and who owns it, who wants it, and who is speaking with a forked tongue about it. Enter the usual suspects, the phantoms.
Who really is this mysterious ‘real estate’ presence? Does he, she, or it exist? Or is this another of the seasonal phantoms that emerge from the bowels of this land to demonstrate to the people the Guyanese Way of handling things? I never heard of a secret real estate body, which can’t be too good for business. Unless, that is, it is a funny kind of business that is being pursued. Well, it is a strange kind of business taking place in that East Coast neighbourhood with fake news, political incorrectness, omissions, deletions, and what could be criminal commissions, if I were to take a hardline of what has unfolded so far. I do.
This brings me back to today: what is a company – a blue chip, a blue-ribboned, and blue stockinged one-doing being anywhere such a sleazy affair? Some commercial opportunities are not worth the involvement because of the, ahem, delicacy of the history. But because of the principals’ back and forth, their verbal sleights of hand, and their holding cards pasted to the chest, probably pinned to the inside of their undershirts, discernment comes early that there is more to these acres than is coming to light currently. I guarantee from now that much more is in motion, and which will confirm that this has nothing to do with logging, but definitely some mining (downstream oil), and construction (facilities). It is why the reputed company reportedly voices the slick legal verbiages that it has seen fit to employ to disguise its hand and ambitions.
As for the partner in this shadowy matter, pardon me, the new commercial kid in that NDC town, the one with the unending company name, I see a proxy for purposes unhelpful to the BV people waiting to capitalize on their undervalued and underpaid asset. If that sounds like a local version of Exxon, it is. Who is this phantom, a whole family from the sound of it? It would help a dumb guy like me to hear, I am John Doe and I want this land, and I am the one buying it. What’s so hard there, folks? As I absorb all this, the conclusion is that this is businesspeople imitating political people, and nothing but a continuation of the synthetic, virtual, and palpable injustices flourishing in Guyana. At the end of it all, it is always the little people who get the wrong end of the stick. Remember that now infamous statement? And who said it about what? So there!
Sincerely,
GHK Lall
