Change Eating Habits -Seriously, Pres Ali?

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

Change Eating Habits -Seriously, Pres Ali?

OPINION BY: GHK LALL – August 2026

Pres Ali means well.  I wonder, though, whether he is serious.  Or, if he takes himself seriously.  I put it gently.  He should listen to himself.  The parts of his speeches that are not AI influenced.  (Follow-up planned).  Change eating habits.  Well-intended.  But, Swiss cheese.

First, there must be a range of food options before people can change their eating habits.  They have choices.  Food options found affordable, in the basket.  Bitter reality for a third to a half of Guyana (maybe) is that they don’t have enough to eat.  If there isn’t enough, what is there to change?

When Guyanese are down to the bone, what opening for changing their eating habits?  When there’s a scramble to put together a simple meal, changing eating habits, for better or worse, is a luxury that eludes.  The focus is on quantity, not quality.  Quality is also costly. 

It’s about bulkage and less about roughage.  Nutrition would be nice to have, but the emphasis is on avoiding starvation. 

Does a man lost in the jungle, or adrift on the ocean, get picky and choosy?  Whither that luxury?  Especially when the only food around is the dead body of a past companion.  The president and his people disagree with me on plenty; I don’t think they can disagree on this point.

Second, Pres Ali took aim at ‘eating out.’  Sure, it’s expensive.  But if the masses don’t treat themselves, now and then, make the sacrifice, then how do investors flocking here recoup their cash?  Guyana has been marketed as business friendly.  Why transform Guyana, the culinary and hospitality part, to being bad for business? 

There’s a contradiction there.  I seek pardoned for tabling.  Some Guyanese use alcohol (other stuff) to numb their senses, relieve the pain of living in Guyana.  Others seek a bite to make them forget how hard it is in this luscious, fabulous, oil rich frontier that has the whole world drooling. 

While the whole world drools, it takes a hard man to shove locals away from what gives them some temporary ease.  See the children smile.

Instead of a Tylenol, poor Guyanese address their migraine and stomach pangs with a Taco or burrito, a burger or pizza.  I’m not talking about Japanese sushi, beluga caviar, or Hungarian goulash for Guyanese who struggle to get enough to eat.  Me, I am a roti and curry man, a peas and rice man.  So, it’s perplexing that the president (who should know better) suddenly is the new voice for a change in local eating habits.  I doubt that anyone could have imagined that presidential call in an oil rich country.  Here a billion is gone through by the PPP Government as if it’s a bottle of rum guzzled down, then to the next?  Meanwhile, poorer Guyanese, chronically short of funds and food, are counseled to change how they eat.

Third, it’s unlikely that Guyanese minimum wage workers, or local pensioners, or lower tier public servants even think of shopping at the high-end supermarkets.  Their minds may wander and settle on the wonders in those high-end and high-priced shops.  Reality check: when prices at municipal markets embarrass them, chase them home, what interest can they have about partaking of expensive goodies in supermarkets?

Fourth, the president and the PPP hierarchy are forever celebrating some new commercial arrival, some splendid ribbon cutting, some promising sod turning.  Now, there is this development that amounts to:  Beware of Supermarkets.  Bypass those megastores.  The Chinese put Guyanese corner shops out of business.  Remaining options, anyone?  What about those investors who plunked down their millions in the calculation that Guyanese sample their goods?  I hope that local entrepreneurs (supermarkets) aren’t included.

In reading what Pres Ali said, I recall that local beauty.  Belly full maan tell hungry belly maan -bare yuh chafe, bruddah.  Ting gun be bettah.  The mystery: change when there’s nothing.

Pres Ali’s Procurement Rap, New Song Sung

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592 GUARDIAN◊ACCOUNTABILITY◊INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM◊GUYANA

Pres Ali’s Procurement Rap, New Song Sung

OPINION BY: GHK LALL– August 2026

Those visits by Pres Ali into places of worship may be paying off.  He sees the light.  He may insist that he sees god (meaning himself); I settle for light.  Light is late in coming.  Its speed slowed down by GPL wires and thick political darkness.  But light has arrived in Guyana and it struck Pres Ali first. 

Opposition and civil society could participate in the national procurement process, part of the oversight mechanism.  Now lightning has struck me.  Really?  After a half decade of PPP cronies and family members ripping off billions from the treasury and reaming Guyanese taxpayers, it may be time for the Opposition and civil society to be involved.  Not in the teefin, but in the new PPP stop the stealing campaign.

Pres Ali wouldn’t be Pres Ali if he didn’t see an opportunity to showcase his cute side.  Adorable he is not.  The national procurement setup has multi-stakeholder presences with little involvement by the government.  If the president is going to crack a joke, it should be one that makes Guyanese laff. 

His multi-stakeholder plot fell flat.  Hence, I beg to differ with him. 

Take a look fellow Guyanese, almost all of those so-called multi-stakeholder presences in the national procurement system are either beholden to the PPP Govt, or proxies for it.  When they are in procurement programs, the government has many seats at the table.  There is no need for a minister, or PPP flunkies.  Such would give away the storyline.  The evaluators are largely PPP loyalists or PPP indentured and indebted. 

Which one was going to go against the tide of corruption?

Recall how quickly the PPP got rid of Geoffrey Vaughn.  There were other components to his departure.  Recall Dr. Terrence Campbell and his exposé on how Oil Fund oversight really works.  One word is adequate enough: rubberstamp.  Recall how obstinate the same PPP Govt has been whenever the idea, the push, for opposition and/or civil society presences within the procurement system came up.  If the procurement system was pure, if it was untouched by politics, then non-PPP presences would have been seated already. 

There was nothing to hide.  No prearrangements to conceal.  No bloated pricing models to stuff under a seat.  No highly favored contractors calling after hours and outside of channels and claiming the right to be the winner of a tender.

Now I hear the government is pondering.  The law could be amended.  Recall what I said earlier about the Pres Ali seeing the light.  It took him a half decade plus to reach this place.  He had a dream.  In Georgetown, not Georgia.  Or, some pressure from foreign diplomats, with the Yankees leading.  Good, ole, Uncle Sam salvaging the situation, seeking to tidy up past messes between now and 2030.  

It’s evident that corruption has become so rampant it is now out-of-control.  Bidders make their own rules.  Evaluators finalize their own numbers.  The procurement system follows through with its eye on Freedom House and Office of the President.  Waiting for a signal, maybe.

The president mentioned the cabinet.  The cabinet doesn’t know its ankle (a euphemism) from its elbow.  Its members see a bid and they see dollars.  Friends due for a partnership, or shakedown. 

Bagmen who should come in for a piece of the action. 

I am sorry, but this business of the president and the cabinet finding religion overnight neither impresses nor inspires.  A bargain, perhaps, to sidestep or go easy on questionable PPP spending in the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee. 

The PPP does nothing for nothing.  There’s always a catch.  So, when I hear of the president with his latest sensationalism, two things register.  There’s a hidden trapdoor in this development of opposition and civil society presences in the procurement system. 

Certainly, the rewards are so rich that it may prove irresistible to some of the newcomers. 

By then, it’s too late.  Can’t say that the PPP using the procurement system fuh teef.  And, if there’s teefin, is nah dem alone teefin. 

Apologies, Excellency Ali.  Government tricks return to condemn.

Woods conveyed, Ali delayed

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592 GUARDIAN◊ACCOUNTABILITY◊INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM◊GUYANA

Woods conveyed, Ali delayed

OPINION BY: GHK LALL– August 2026

I see a study in contrasts.  Exxon’s CEO Darren Woods burst out of his executive suite and conveyed the news.  Investment in Guyana fully recovered; all US$55 billion of it.  Two years early to crown some superb work.  Guyana’s CEO of Oil, Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, barricaded himself behind steel fences and locked doors.  He hasn’t shown his face, said a word, on that Exxon investment development. 

See what I mean by the foreign CEO conveyed, the local CEO delayed?  A study in contrasts, if ever there was one.

It took Guyana’s other CEO, Pres Irfaan Ali to break away from his government’s delay and relay that Guyana is finally in the money and collecting 39.5 percent in profits.  I am still working through what made that so hard to say so.  Now checkout this other contrast: Exxon was proud to proclaim to the world that its investment came back into the house bank a full two years ahead of time. 

On the Guyana side, it took 18 days before the PPP Govt, through CEO Ali, to break its silence on what has to qualify as an extraordinary event in Guyana’s ongoing oil story.  One CEO recouped his billions two years before schedule.  The Guyanese CEO took almost two years to repeat the same grand news to his people.  The 18-day delay to cut through the profit silence equates to almost two years by my reckoning.  Each day of silence was the equivalent of a monthlong delay.  This was news that belonged with Guyanese.  More than three times the oil earnings of the first six years of oil production must be a giant leap for Guyana, a great moment for Guyanese.                          Why withhold?  How can there be silence? 

Exxon’s investment repaid and Guyana set to climb the profit ladder cannot be a national security secret.  How so?  Who is so, ah, sloppy, to say so?

Before proceeding, permit me.  Appreciate and repeat for the record that Mr. Darren Woods was also selling himself as due for a nice raise for his lovely work.  Appreciate also that it took the PPP Govt so much time to decide what to say to Guyanese.  Three times present oil collections and then some more must have set the wheels spinning in Freedom House. 

What to do with all these new US billions tumbling into the Oil Fund?  In circumstances such as these, temptations soar.  National development priorities have proven to be a dud, worn thin.  I empathize.  A cash grant only utilizes so many US millions.  For the first time, I heard Pres Ali mentioning structure.  It seems that the MV Barima disaster jarred him awake, stuck some wisdom in him.  Too late. 

A legacy that was pathetic to begin with, now in tatters.  To quote local lingo: “dem nah gah watah fuh wash am.”  Play with fire.  End up in the crematory.

Nobody can say that I didn’t warn the PPP, which is why Dr. Jagdeo is so wrapped in silence at this exciting juncture.  He is working diligently to hold the party together.  Amid a sea of blatant corruption, ongoing starvation in sections of the population, and political families enriched from left to right to stragglers, the PPP General Secretary doesn’t have time for oil.  He either gets the party faithful in line quickly and conclusively, or many of his people (and others closer to home) could be looking at jail time. 

He knows that, which is why he has been missing in action from the conversation about 39.8 percent in profits.

A strange country this Guyana of ours.  Master presenter Darren Woods was all excitement about collecting back his company’s US$55 billion.  In contrast, Guyana with more billions coming in from a greater surge in American dollars is glummer than Droopy, that sad cartoon canine, and dimmer than Cinderella after she lost her slipper when the dancing was over. 

For people who love money, it’s a strange way in which the PPP celebrates Guyana’s change in fortunes.  Woods was all bubbly.  Ali was no less than rusty.  Something tells me that Guyanese are in trouble with their 39.8 percent windfall.

MV Barima: Buying time, Arranging Outcome, Controlling Narrative

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592 GUARDIAN◊ACCOUNTABILITY◊INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM◊GUYANA

MV Barima: Buying time, Arranging Outcome, Controlling Narrative

OPINION BY: GHK Lall– August 2026

One has to live here to come to grips with the PPP Govt’s ways.  When developments favor, it charges forward at a full gallop.  When it is disadvantaged, all the leadership tricks accumulated over the years are rolled out. The exhuming of the MV Barima from its underwater grave is illuminating of how the government works at buying time and giving itself space.  One of the objectives of the delaying tactics is to help it with creating a fresh, self-serving narrative on a tragedy that the ruling party wishes that the people will forget. 

The faster the better.  The more complete the forgetting is, the more content the brutish national leadership is.

It was inevitable that rank politics would intrude in the midst of raw tragedy.  A boat at the bottom with bodies in it to be brought up.  From the record, there’s slowing down with devotion to every T crossed and every I dotted.  There are still many X’s and O’s missing.  Cargo.  Bodies.  Numbers.  Shipshape.  In a free-flowing marine environment time doesn’t standstill.  Time tears apart what’s left.  Steel corrodes.  None should need an education on how rapidly the flesh erodes.  Or how underwater predators flourish in a strange, new, feeding ground.  I am trying to be delicate here; maybe didn’t do too well.

How well the government is doing isn’t debatable.  It isn’t doing well at all.  Beyond engaging in its tortured review process, its slow walk to nowhere idea, and its gambling on salvaging half of a ship.  Recover the ship and produce the evidence will indicate some diligence.  Of a special sort.  Dubious.  Disfigured.  Trying to piece together the shards of that wreckage could be the mother of all fixes.  I think that this is part of the depraved vision of the PPP Govt.  Salvage completed.  Vessel delivered.  Time to wash hands.  Watch developments.  There is a Commission of Inquiry in place. 

It provides confidence (to the government) that duty will be done, with few feathers stirred the wrong way.  It’s well to remember that many families are mourning.  It would be tasteless to raise a ruckus.

Before proceeding, I register a concern.  My hope is that the ill-omened MV Barima reaches the surface intact.  With the PPP, I have learned to expect anything.  Anything that’s on life’s darker side.  Because when note is taken of a group of men who ignores precedent, who dismisses standards, who mocks principles, there is astonishment at the same gents suddenly transformed into major disciples of process and procedure.  What could be afoot?  What mischief is in the air, but still under the table?  These questions are relevant. 

For there’s a government that is desperately trying to shake the stench of a human disaster (discard maritime) that sticks to its pores.  If it can’t shake the stench, then it could certainly shake the dice so that it rolls to the government’s favor

.There may be conscientious Guyanese who think, who expect, who hope, for a fair and straight process-tender, probe, depth, truth, and admission-from this government’s brain trust, relative to the MV Barima postmortem.  I feel sorry for those citizens.  They need to have their own heads probed and excised of its toxins.  When has the PPP Govt dealt straight with the Guyanese people?  Police killings.  Sacrificial killings.  Copter killings.  Why should it start now with boat killings of 100 or so? 

Why would the PPP Govt see it fit to be straight after all of its lies, its secret assassins (who aren’t so secret), its distortions and its deformities?  Get some sense, Guyanese.  Be true to thy self. 

There is no reason for the PPP Govt to be energized and genuinely committed to salvage exercise, to review exercise, when the blood of over 100 Guyanese is on its head.  Blood on its hands.  Blood on its lips.  Blood that stains its wasted soul.

Fellow Guyanese: the MV Barima salvage process is about buying time.  About arranging the outcome.  About preparing the narrative to sell another set of falsehoods. 

So, there can be more drinking of the blood of Guyanese.  I call it, as I see it.

Asking a Favor of The PPP Govt

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592 GUARDIAN♦ ACCOUNTABILITY & INTEGRITY JOURNALISM ♦GUYANA

Asking a Favor of The PPP Govt

OPINION BY: GHK LALL – August 2026

Pride is swallowed.  A favor is publicly asked of the PPP Govt.  Because there is utter confidence that people in the Office of the President, Office of the Prime Minister, and Office of the 2nd Vice President all avidly absorb what I share with the Guyanese people, my plea will get to the right person in the right place.  My tried-and-true philosophy for the PPP (and others) is simple.  I write, they read.  This message is for His Excellency, President Mohamed Irfaan Ali.

I have a problem.  Even more importantly, the entire region has a problem, a huge one.  The CCJ President, Justice Winston Anderson, is digging in his heels, seems settling in for a long stay.  Not to mince words, that would be the worst development for Guyana, and all those other big and small countries dotting the map between here and the Bahamas.  Hence, this appeal to Guyana’s Pres Ali.

From all indications, he shares a more than solid relationship with Justice Anderson.  I think it would not be out of bounds to assert that the relationship is so close, as to be an intimate and trusted one.  Think of this, my fellow citizens.  Would Pres Ali deign to engage any Justice Tom, or Dick, or Harry to discuss the hang ups relative to the frozen state of the appointments of Guyana’s chancellor of the judiciary and chief justice with the then Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Aubrey Norton?  Then, to follow up with him? 

Then, to call back more than once, and test the patience of his listener by pushing the envelope further across the table until it was lodged in Mr. Norton’s gullet?  I don’t think so.  Not Pres Ali.  Not on a matter so long delayed, so infinitely delicate that a risk is taken, by placing it into clumsy or crude hands.  Not for those two appointments.  Pres Ali may be many things.  But one thing he is not: he is not reckless to the point of slackness.  Not when so much is involved.  Not when the power dynamic could come under pressure.  Not when Vice President, Dr. Jagdeo is there to coach him on the way things like CoJ and CJ are done.

Therefore, the CCJ’s President Anderson was the right partner with the right credentials (and title) and with the right level of gumption (go and get it done).  Having apparently cajoled President Anderson to take up that sensitive job. i.e., approach Mr. Norton for his buy-in on specified movements and names for Guyana’s CoJ and CJ positions, Pres. Ali now has to take it to another level.  The favor I ask of him is that he communicates to CCJ President Winston Anderson that he really should go quickly, quietly, into the night.  Ease away gingerly. 

Walkaway with some residual dignity intact.  It is clear to me that there’s an extraordinary bond that exists between Guyana’s Pres Ali and the CCJ’s President Anderson.  Pres Ali must tap into that relationship and influence the CCJ number one to become the CCJ’s number eight.  That is, on the outside.  Out of the picture.  Out of contention.  He wouldn’t be out in the cold.  Might even be rescued by one of Exxon’s subsidiaries knocking about the place.

I understand the magnitude of the favor that I am asking of Guyana’s Pres Ali.  It is not such a simple matter to let go of a guaranteed ally at the region’s apex court.  But how will he be able to manage?  Inside of the CCJ is now like a gas chamber -all poison.  Outside of the CCJ, there is hostility and heartbreak.  In his defense, President Anderson put out a voluminous statement. 

His problem was that there was a waiting chorus ready to take him on.  I think he is scarred and skinned.  I think that he is now seen as judicially anemic, a lame duck leader

Pres Ali should nudge him, lean on him.  Time to go.  The PPP will have to go on.  So, would I.

CCJ -Is This What Standards Have Become?

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

CCJ -Is This What Standards Have Become?

OPINION BY: GHK LALL— August 2026

It pains to listen, read, absorb the descendants of slaves and indentured servants make public representation that prioritizes chasing after those condemned.  Leakers.  After all the great sacrifices made by fore parents, in the jaws of fearsome savagery, this is where matters terminate.  An emphasis, a priority, on tracking leakers.  Notwithstanding all the education, some of substantial quality, this is the sum of, shall I say, intellectual and ethical curiosity.  The heart of issues, its commanding pull, is the first casualty that collapses.  The next has to be we ourselves -me and you.

Coming out of Trinidad, some serious men and women with hard-earned reputations for illustriousness took the bull by the horns.  There’s a problem at the CCJ.  At the top.  In some of the worst ways possible.  Coming out of Guyana, the reaction was telling and chilling.  Pursue the leakers.  Is this for real?  Is somebody serious here?  The matter at hand is not of some government ministry with a suspected long program of corruption and generalized wrongdoing. 

The concern is that the system of justice at its highest elevation in this region now appears tainted.  Smells rancid.  Besmirched by its own hand, as alleged.  There must be some significance attached to the implications of the allegations made.  Not by political opponents in a political campaign.  But by respected jurists against a brother.  It calls for some guts, some trait in the character, to take such a momentous step. 

The anxieties were too tormenting-perhaps, to the point of being unbearable-for no objection to be tendered, no trail of disagreement to be imprinted.

Now the best that can be offered in reaction (in and out of Guyana) is to go after whoever breached walls, penetrated too far.  In the situation, I wonder what is thought of the five CCJ judges who made their positions so clear?  Maybe they should have let sleeping dogs lie.  From the snippets, however, there was more than a trace of dysfunction at the CCJ.  It was being eroded, and eroding, from deep inside.  And not at some mundane level. 

I invite my fellow Guyanese to weigh this question.  What if the situation, as identified, is allowed to continue?  Could it be said that there are more opportunities for more travesties and miscarriages to be inflicted on the peoples of this region?  Without the specifications of some of the hard disagreements among the judges, what probability for institutional self-improvement? 

Or, more ominously, what probability for further degradation, based on the stream of allegations?

Frankly, whoever leaked those emails did the CCJ and this region a huge favor.  The CCJ administration (and the political overlords) are afforded the room to examine what went on, finalize the steps necessary for a cure.  The region is now able to place the CCJ under a microscope and study from its people to its processes to its output. 

Languishing in ignorance.  Believing that a straight deck and a fair deal are at work.  Though such may not be the case.  An injustice. 

Then that is a command for exposure and enlightenment.  Some developments, some circumstances, are too vital to be left to resolve themselves on their own.  A leak serves as a spur to action, a call to correction, however harsh.  In the call to go after leakers, I go back to my slave reference. 

When the slave rebels were hunted down, it extended the ignominy of slavery.  When slaves were recruited, or pressed into duty, to track down those fighting for their cause, they (the trackers) were damaging themselves.

I think that some damage has been done to Guyanese.  I stop there.  But if the level of trust, the high degree of confidence, that should repose in the CCJ suffers from the slightest decline, then that has to amount to a big consideration for free and pure functioning of the law and the dispensation of what passes for justice in this region.  If not at the CCJ, then where?  If not with those who sit at the CCJ table, then who? 

Should the CCJ lack the required ethical fiber to perform at the highest, cleanest level, then all is lost.  Our ancestors made too many sacrifices in the fields, skimped in the homes, for matters to come to this.

A Judge for Every Season

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592 GUARDIAN◊ACCOUNTABILITY◊INTEGRITY JOURNALISM◊GUYANA

A Judge for Every Season

OPINION BY: GHK LALL— August 2026

I have heard about a hanging judge.  From readings, I know about travelling judges.  There’s familiarity with governing judges better known as Administrative Law Judges.  Thanks to the leader of the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), Mr. Aubrey Norton, I now have my first exposure to an intruding judge. 

As I thank CCJ President Winston Anderson for his interests in Guyana’s business, and his helping hand, how did he find the time to get anything done at the CCJ?  Something of quality.  Sure, what he did was something of value.  I can hear Guyanese-born Mark Holder crooning away.  What I can’t understand is how a Jamaican-born judge allowed himself to get embroiled in Guyana’s never less than brutish affairs.  In attempting to be a judge for all seasons, he should have remembered Sir Thomas More, the original man for all seasons.  Look what happened to him.

It is said that no good deed goes unpunished.  Now, Justice Anderson is hearing just that, as he is forced to relive his ill-advised foray into Guyana’s politics.  There is the lash of disbelief.  Surely, Justice Anderson is wise enough, had to know, that was a lose-lose proposition.  For him.  Without going into the details of Mr. Norton’s revelations (more expressive on this occasion), it seems that Justice Anderson took it upon himself, or was engaged by the PPP Govt, to function as a one-man Judicial Service Commission.  Not in Jamaica where he was born.  Not in Trinidad where he operates.  But in Guyana, where he has little business.  Or does he?

Considering the disclosures emerging from his five CCJ colleagues, with a thrust in the direction of the Azruddin Mohamed extradition case, and now this elaboration from Mr. Norton, question naturally arise re the scales of justice in the CCJ? 

Guyanese have heard a word before relative to a court matter in the local environment, which left them shaken and queasy.  It was uttered by a noble American who was bold enough (and confident enough) to speak with assurance of a guarantee.  These things are too sophisticated, too complex, for a man with a head as small as mine. 

But there was Justice Amderson acting in the capacity of unpaid adviser, roving solicitor, and his version of shuttle diplomacy.

Back and forth, back and forth.  Between Pres Ali and the APNU head, Mr. Norton.  A wee bit unbecoming for a CCJ President, so I think.  Phone call after phone call, as though he had shares in AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.  If nothing else, Justice Anderson must be recognized: a bundle of energy, a real dynamo. 

It looks bad.  It smells bad.  Personally speaking, Justice Anderson appears to be too tight with the PPP Govt.  I cannot say what was in Pres Ali’s head, nor what was in Justice Anderson’s head at the time of the Yonette Cummings-Edwards shocker.  I can only share what is in my head.  This whole affair did not coat Pres Ali nor President Anderson in a blaze of glory.  Frankly, it leaves a terrible taste.  Pres Ali shouldn’t have involved the judge.  For his part, Justice Anderson had to decline politely any invitation. 

This raises another question.  Was he invited or did he volunteer?  See what I mean when I spoke of complications and being over my head?

The one participant in this political-judicial trio that conducted himself with aplomb and astuteness has to be Mr. Aubrey Norton of the APNU.  Do not bring that here!  Get that dead cat out of here!  Clearly, the PPP Govt was that desperate, it would do anything to overcome the senior judicial appointments chokepoint.  The problem is Justice Anderson allowed himself to be ensnared, probably with the best of intentions, only to have egg on his face and shirtfront.  It may not be a fresh egg.

Is it only Guyana where matters reach this state?  I’m beginning to doubt my sanity.  Then again, I remember how dirty Guyana is, despite the oil gloss.  Perhaps, that also had a sponsorship role in this soap opera. 

Summation: Justice Anderson should have erred on the side of caution.  Thanks, but no thanks.

Silence is Barren

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592 GUARDIAN♦ ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY JOURNALISM♦ GUYANA

Silence is Barren

OPINION BY: GHK LALL —August 2026

It is said that silence is golden.  Considering where the PPP Govt has taken silence relative to the new profit sharing, I would say that silence isn’t golden.  Silence is barren.  Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, a man of triathlon political stamina, is suddenly out of breath.  Ever had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Jagdeo the marathon talker on the go?  Apparently, he has hit a bump on the road and gone down into some ditch.  When the Guyanese people need to hear from their chief oil and gas policymaker, they are left sucking sand, spitting bricks. 

Forget about silence is golden.  For reasons unknown, silence is now manifesting some sinister complexions.

Look I’m one of those dumb country boys who don’t know jack from jill.  But I know silence when I’m near it.  Did some musclebound heavyweight from Exxon put Dr. Jagdeo in a headlock, cutoff his oxygen?  So completely that not even a gurgle escapes past his larynx?  This is ruff stuff.  But what could be sweeter than Guyanese now all lined up and 50:50 profit sharing a reality!  Not to come, but already part of the net revenue calculus.  Not with hands outstretched, but with the biggest bucket that could be found to collect the billions earned and due to this country from its oil.  Guyana’s oil mandarin can’t go on leave now.  Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat, has left his phone or Laptop at home, but he is not the one.  Bharrat Jagdeo is the only one.

Silence has its uses.  Can be a sign of refinement, a measure of comportment.  Depending on the occasion.  And the company. 

Silence in what should be a time of celebration amounts to what is a sacrilege.  Pardon me, but what else? 

Dr. Jagdeo has been Guyana’s strongman for ages.  He has slammed people around, turned them upside down.  He cannot go from strongman to missing man.  Or tin man.  His is not the option to go from missing leader to tongue-tied speaker.  Surely, that qualifies as a contradiction in terms: a tongue-tied speaker.  I think that silence is slackness.  Within the framework of the new profit-sharing setup between Exxon and Guyana, silence is tantamount to dereliction of duty.

I simplify with an example.  Imagine the oil consortium operating offshore discovers five billion barrels of new oil.  But says absolutely nothing.  No information.  No communication.  Not a conversation.  What’s up with that picture?  It’s where Guyanese are in terms of their Exxon mortgage paid off.  When there should be singing in the streets, with Dr. Jagdeo in the lead, there is silence.  When there should be shouting from the rooftops, and Jagdeo at his loudest, there is silence. 

Grim, awful, deathly silence, as though Guyana is in the middle of a nuclear winter.

Frankly, I am disappointed in the Vice President.  He could have stood from the balcony of his offices, or the roof gardens of Freedom House, and give Guyanese the V (for victory) sign.  He must be under a tremendous amount of pressure that even sticking two fingers in the air is a torture.  Guyana’s Number One Oilman never struck me as one of those strong, silent types.  More of an excitable, raucous, presence when the spirit took over him, for sure. 

For a long time, it was the time of his favorite spirits.  Now the spirits have deserted him, and he’s a shadow of something.  Don’t ask me what, as I am still working my way through that molasses swamp. 

Unfathomable it may be to some.  But the gods of silence have taken over this country.  I don’t think it’s for the better.  Mark my words, folks.

Whatever the concoction, whatever the form of the contraption, there will have to be a conversation.  Meanwhile, it is blissful silence.  Something tells me that a pot full of liquid is heading Guyanese way. 

The first sprinklings came when Guyana’s President of Oil, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo went into silent mode.  Rain in the forecast for Guyana’s 50:50 profit parade.  

Exxon•Guyana Profit Sharing Pennywise-Pt III

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 THE 592 GUARDIAN ACCOUNTABILITY INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM

Exxon•Guyana Profit Sharing Pennywise-PtIII

OPINION BY: GHK LALL– August 2026

The Exxon juggernaut rolled, had a great second quarter 2026.  Guyana had a hand in the company’s numbers, with its teeny-weeny 900,000 barrels a day.  The big news from this side of the Americas is that Exxon has been repaid to the penny its US$55 billion investment. 

Thanks for the jumpstart, all those projects humming, all those barrels churning out day after day.  Soon, Guyana will be in that exclusive club: a million barrel a day oil producer.  But at what a cost!  What has been straight with Exxon and this PPP Govt?  What can be trusted when no one can speak straight, give that sense of comfort, because their words ring of reliability?  It is against this backdrop that I offer a stripped-down version of what 50:50 profit sharing could look like.  To put my money where my mouth is, this is where I stand.

Please give a look at this barebones scenario in which I use one barrel of oil.  For purposes of conversation, the price is US$100 a barrel.  From production of one barrel of oil there’s revenue of US$100.  Gross revenue it is called.  I warn that from here on the wicket gets sticky.  There is that beast-an 800-pound gorilla-in the room and at the head of the table.  It is what’s called OPERATING EXPENSES. 

Given Guyana’s history in the last six years with oil, with Exxon’s accounting, my expectations are low.  By such time that Exxon’s world-class number crunchers are done with Operating Expenses, US$100 is not US$100.  It is not US$90 nor US$80 nor US$70.  I stake my ground, draw my line.  Guyana will be lucky if it ends up with Gross Oil Revenue of US$100 minus Operating Expenses at US$65.  I see it as being more at around US$60 in Net Oil Revenue. 

This is the magic, mystery, and monstrosity of Operating Expenses.  I pause for a moment.

Recall I’m dealing the hand that Exxon itself has displayed to this country.  Strange postures.  Evasive language.  Shadowy numbers.  Recall a maagah US$214 million in audit findings and those two glaring developments associated with it.  By some mysterious hand, US$214 million fell to US$3 million overnight.  Second, that relatively small amount of US$214 million (for Exxon) has been held up for several years now.  No comment from me on this.  I don’t have to say one word, since both the US$214 million and years speak for themselves. 

Now let this be said: I think that Exxon may think nothing of taking care of bumps in its way whenever money is involved.  Even when the amount of money is minute.  Now think of what to expect when billions are in play.  When Operating Expenses mutate into a monster that is turned into a weapon against Guyana’s interests.

Having said very clearly where I am, and how I envision 50:50 profit sharing will materialize, I return to Net Oil Revenue now standing at US$60.  It has to be divided in two.  Exxon gets US$30 and Guyana collects US$30.  The Guyana Government gets an opportunity to expound on the Exxon relationship and the trusted partnership. 

The Guyanese people should be happy.  All’s well that ends well.  Not so fast, folks.  There is that lovely consideration that is not going away, and which no Guyanese should forget.  Who pays Exxon’s taxes?  Guyana does. 

However that is schemed, whatever the form it takes, no matter how spun or swung, this is set in stone: Guyana pays Exxon’s taxes.  Or to put it better still: Exxon does not pay a dime of the taxes that it incurred.  Immediately this could be seen for the imbalances that are embedded.

Exxon has Guyana over a barrel (no pun) with Operating Expenses.  Then, Guyana is under the gun with the taxes and that farce about tax certificates.  Conclusion: In my single barrel presentation, this much should be obvious: Guyana’s US$30 (half cut) and Exxon’s US$30 (whatever that percentage) are not the same. 

It shouldn’t surprise, therefore, that the 50:50 profit sharing language of Exxon is so studiously, so painfully, careful.  Think of what’s afoot.— The 592 Guardian

Exxon-Guyana profit sharing: the dollars

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THE 592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY&INTEGRITY JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

Exxon-Guyana profit sharing: the dollars

OPINON BY: GHK LALL—AUGUST, 2026

The issue is more moolah, some more dinero, for Guyana.  A straight up, fair shuffle, 50:50 profit cut of 100 percent oil revenues minus 2 percent royalty and operating expenses.  Just when Guyanese started to feel good about themselves, started drooling about extra oil money and having a party, I must be the bad guy and bruk up de party.

I brace for more than La Nina.  I’m bracing for a Texas drought, followed by a Texas blackout.  Talk Texas.  Think Exxon.  These guys didn’t get to the top of the oil world by being cowpokes.  They may sound sweeter than Jimmy Stewart. 

Whoever is smart in Guyana had better take my advice:

They are deadlier than a rattler in the bed; and Freddy Krueger under it.  From here, it gets nastier.

Exxon had a good second quarter for 2026.  Remember the date: July 31, 2026.  It will rate in Exxon lore as one of its better days in recent years.  Now Guyanese, remember this: July 31, 2026 represented something else: the first glimpses of yet another lurking Guyana tragedy.  For Exxon, it was:

♦ US$14.5 billion in earnings

♦ US$23.6 billion operating cash flow

♦ US$17 billion plus in Free Cash Flow

Great news for Exxon.  With the following two small throwaway bones for Guyana:

♦ 900,000 daily production barrels

♦ FPSO #Five projected to add 250k barrels

Amidst big, beautiful numbers for Exxon, that was the recognition for Guyana.  Chief Darren Woods gave himself a fat pat on the shoulder: Exxon broke a record in recouping its investment in Guyana so early. Another big raise pending.   However, not one goddamn word (or number) from Super Chief Woods about when Guyana gets closer to the much-vaunted 50:50 profit sharing from 100 percent net oil revenues.  The cost bank is empty.  Hence, it follows automatically that the profit-sharing formula changes from:

(100-75-2)/2 to:

(100–2)/2  (Net oil revenues divided by two)

When it was Moneyman Neil Hansen’s turn to share good cheer on July31st, he went overboard. He converted to his best imitation of a Talmudic scholar.  Smooth and sophisticated.  Profound as a Renaissance Man.  He threw in the oil deal.  He noted operating costs.  He went from the general to the specific, after first going all over the world. 

I do Mr. Hansen a favor, add to his luster: behold another Bharrat Jagdeo disciple.  Money-boss Hansen went around in circles, without moving his feet.  And even when he did get around to admitting it, his energy level was alarmingly low. 

Guyana should be in line for a 50:50 profit share.  Profit share of what, Mr. Hansen, that’s the million-dollar question I table?  Specifically, of what is left from the money— revenue when Exxon is done with it?  Answer it, please.  Thanks to Mr. Hansen, Guyanese have a clue of where the wind blows.

According to Mr. Hansen, Exxon’s share of oil in the Stabroek Block will decline.  Like hell, it will.  Exxon will not allow that to happen.  Seven projects already approved.  Projects eight and nine have been cleverly sprayed by Exxon into Guyana’s air (and Guyanese ears). 

Listen for 10 and 11.  Money.  Money.  Money.  As in billions of US dollars.  As in the Guyana cost bank reborn and owned by Guyana.  

Meanwhile, when Guyanese pressed their most trusted partner on when their fair and full 50:50 profit share begins, that’s when Mr. Alistair Routledge donned his mask, fastened his earplugs, and disappeared.  He spoke cagily.  Was denser than the Dead Sea; both sea and scrolls.  The man who spoke brightly about Exxon’s world-class accounting systems is suddenly talking an altogether different language. 

World-class, too, I assure everyone.  ‘Next year.  Prices.  Acceleration.  Significantly increase.  What do those mean?

Finally, I arrive at Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo.  For six years he danced with Exxon on all oil issues.  Now, he has a problem.  He ran out of dancefloor.  Equal profit share, remember that, doc?  No answer.  Explanation A: Dr. Jagdeo is now practicing medicine.  He lost interest in oil.  In part three, how all of this is shaping up.