Dear Editor,
“You have an existing contract. You think that is how it happens. That is how the world operates. That you can just walk in one day and decide I had this contract with you. I am changing it now” (KN October 8, 2023). I hold my head and want to scream. This cannot be spoken by anyone with a university degree, certainly not somebody with a PhD. It can never be from a national leader, a president. The problem is that it is. What is clearly at work in President Ali is that he has done more than reduce talk of “renegotiation” of the Exxon contract to the simplistic. He has convinced himself that he is dealing with simpletons. If he were not a head of state, I would have readily affixed that same word [simpleton] to His Excellency, PhD or no PhD, for it is what he has done to himself.
How to dissect, where to start to explain (again) what the President presented to his audience? Here it is again: “you can just walk in one day and decide I had this contract with you. I am changing it now.” The President should not run away with the idea that Guyanese are this limited, that they can’t comprehend the vapidity with what the president said. Frankly, this is leadership vacuousness at its best. It was President Ali himself who once said in the context of sanctity of contract that ‘we are an honourable people’ so it is jaw-dropping that he would attempt to condemn Guyanese to the ranks of stupid people, in the form of his latest verbal construct. President Ali should know and all open minded citizens should know, that even a binding contract between two inconsequential individuals for a minute amount of business does not follow the course that he outlined, with what he believes to be authority.
A junior in a company (or his party) doing the exact same thing that President Ali put on the table (“I am changing it now”) would be laughed all the way out of town. If the president doesn’t know that, then what does he know? He does not have to be a Harvard Business School graduate to recognize the errors in what he is trying vigorously to sell. Or a Middle Temple law product to admit to the glaring holes in his representations? President Ali knows full well that renegotiation is more than walking in one day and saying I have had it with this, and “I am changing it now.” Negotiations are almost always a tortured and tireless and thankless process, even when friendly parties are dealing on an equal footing, and for far lesser matters. In the instance of the Exxon contract, there is no equality of standing, not even a modicum of respect from the American side, and possibly some grinding hostility also. Under the current contract regime, Exxon would never want to hear the word renegotiation, not even in whispered terms. So, it is more than a day’s work, more than Exxon being receptive, more than labourious and tedious and testing of patience.
Renegotiation is war, and clearly the president comes up with these subterfuges (a day) to dodge the battle that must be fought. This is not a conscientious objection. It is of a president mangling words to suit his timidities, to paper over his frailties. Renegotiation is a long haul and long slog endeavor. It is no quarter given, save for Guyana’s president giving up without a shot being fired, so mortally afraid he is of “superpower” Exxon. We live with this super stinker of a partner and the President is struck by foot-in-mouth disease. Union contracts, sports contracts, and contracts (agreements) between nations all call for creativity, sagacity, perspicacity, and willpower. Either the president lacks those, or he has thrown in the towel before the weigh-in. Instead of President Ali unloading on patriotic Guyanese, this country is better off when he directs his verbal gymnastics and un-leaderlike figure skating at Exxon. Mobilize Guyana to exorcise Exxon. Do it, boss.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall
