MINISTER INDAR ECSTATIC MANIFESTATIONS

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THE 592 GUARDIAN♦ ACCOUNTABILITY JOURNALISM

Minister Indar’s Ecstatic Manifestations

Minister Indar unwittingly got himself into a fine pickle.  In talking about negotiations with the Turkish electricity barge executives, he ventured into the realm of incomprehensible ecstatic manifestations. 

Our government led by President Ali, we made sure that we took some strong positions on negotiation.”

I am awed by unrestrained merriment that took hold of the honorable minister.  Apparently, Minister Indar is more the Minister of Public Comedies than he is as Minister of Public Utilities.  I humbly petition Excellency Ali to do his duty.  Make it official, please, Mr. President: Reappoint Deodat Indar to the Minister of National Hilarity portfolio.

When has our government led by Pres Ali…made sure that we took some strong positions on negotiation             

Because it is my government and my president, I search for such a record, hold both accountable.  To my fellow Guyanese: Seen as many Cuban medical personnel recently?  Check in Havana or Guantanamo. 

And there stands the government’s self-celebrating position of taking

The PPP Govt, as led by Pres Ali, took a strong position on deportees.  Not those who hailed from Demerara, Berbice and, (yes) Essequibo.  But those from far and farther away.  But then not even those that the government would be proud to invite to dinner at State House.  If the PPP wouldn’t welcome them at Congress, then they shouldn’t be in this country.  Game over.  Except that this isn’t a game. 

Hence, when Marco Rubio came sailing here like Christopher Columbus on his new voyage of discovery, he should have been given a return ticket there and then.  Take that message about third country deportees, and stuff it, buster.  How about that for taking a strong position on negotiation.  Gimme some Cubans doctors, and Guyana is duty bound to take in some Guyanese deportees.The U.S. milked them in their prime.  The U.S. must drink them in their grime and brine.

The Canadian gold people came here.  They put in a dollar and get an acre.  Thousands of acres.  From the small dollars invested, they swap out, flip over, and switch around those same now rich gold acres to new parties.  A million for a hundred more.  Sweet odds, lavish returns.  What strong position the PPP Govt, as led by Excellency Ali?  It happened once -nothing.  It happened again – no reaction from the Ali-led PPP Govt (again).  Some kind of special position and exceptional negotiation is that, from Minister Indar.  The foreign gold people pulled that one once.  Therefore, it made perfect financial sense (and leadership ones, too) to take a truly strong position and put a stopper in that loophole.  The situation cried out for that form of justice.  Like the blood of Abel cried out for recompense when the hand of a brother was raised fatally.  It was against what taints, even tampers, with the fabric of friendship.  What ought to have been a strong position taken (as led by Pres Ali) for a respectful relationship between Guyana and investors who rush here to grab a load of free gold.

I regret that in extoling the PPP Govt’s virtues: strong positions and the leadership of Dr. Ali, re negotiations, Minister Indar gave short thrift to history, and delighted himself with comedy.                                                                                                            Surely, he has to know that when he gleams with words like those that he descends into the old, soggy territory: what’s recklessly merry, of rank hilarity.  I think that Minister Indar has a second career waiting.  A master jester.  Hailed for making his mark as a determined, but still unskilled, entertainer.                         The PPP Govt seems to spawn them by the hundreds every week it’s in office.

THE 592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY JOURNALISM 

ILLNESS AND DEATH,THEN MORE SICKNESS, DEATH-LIKE STATES

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THE 592 GUARDIAN♦ ACCOUNTABILITY JOURNALISM♦JUNE 2026                                                                                  ILLNESS AND DEATH, THEN MORE SICKNESS, DEATHLIKE STATE

I met Mr. Don Singh just once. Stopped and shared a few minutes in pleasant conversation. Whatever his politics, my impression was of a decent fellow. When the news of his sudden illness came, it was a surprise. Now that he has left these shores, may his soul rest in peace. To his biological family, my condolences on what has to be a hard loss. To his political family, regrets at losing a formidable worker. And, to my regret, whenever I make the mistake of thinking that things can’t get worse in this country, sink to more depraved depths, they do.

I struggle to understand how some can find joy in a man’s illness. A political man, a prince of a man, poor man, or a man who may have made himself, or be seen as, an enemy, it does not matter. There is ugly and there is ugly. To chortle privately on receiving the news of sickness is bad enough. To celebrate sickness in the vast public space of social media is degrading to an unfathomably dreadful level. It’s a sickness of a terrible kind by itself. Guyanese have really sunk to the bottom of a bottomless pit. When the savaging politics of this land of barbarians takes precedence over basic humanity, and day-to-day decency. I don’t care who is involved, so I say it now, and will say it forever. Whoever finds laughter, a time to engage in mockery, and an opportunity to kick a man, during a time of serious illness, that is one sick puppy. Sick in the head. Sick to the soul. And so sick and so callously indifferent that may have already died.

It is at times like these that I am glad to hold what is for me a prized outsider status.

Not trapped and warped by the prejudices that power local politics. Not condemned to the garbage dumpsite where ancient political grudges fester and flourish. There is so much hating, the call to forgiving may now be forever lost.

Guyanese are ghosts inside a skeleton that is overloaded and overflowing with a stream of poisons that find escape and the worst expressions when there is a human tragedy. Who is so base they see an enemy during those painful moments of loss and human catastrophe? I cast my eyes across to Venezuela and devastating earthquakes of this and that magnitude, and a full body shiver runs amok. Guyanese are so fortunate when the licks and kicks of providence were allocated. Perhaps that explains why the people of this country are so cursed. By the irresistible pull of their politics hurling them towards all that they have come to know: gutter reactions. Such was what stalked the news of Mr. Don Singh’s illness.

Now that he is gone to his creator, there was a moment for many of the social media warriors to regroup and recollect themselves. Having had a good laugh at sickness, the news of the man’s death was a line not to be crossed. Except that it was. The unbreachable breached. Treating self with profanity and vulgarity amid threnodies of grieving. Guyanese do wear their disgrace on their sleeves. All self-respect hollowed out and proudly displayed on the altar of political frenzies that burn at higher and higher pitches.

Seeing that sickness and death are causes for ostentatious displays of ignorance, it is no wonder that living has become such a corrosive burden in this divided, raucous, self-defeating society.

I behold Guyanese, who are committed to tearing apart and bringing down each other. It is all in the name of the wrenching and divisive politics that have haunted this land, in times of peace and relative quiet. Thus, I cringe in thinking of how citizens may be to fellow citizens in times that are hostile and more hateful. Often, I am glad that, though many a thought is shared in public spaces, there is still rebuffing getting any closer. The armor that protects. The safety net that upholds sanity.

May the soul of this brother, Don Singh, find eternal rest.

AK-47s: Guyanese Must Know More

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THE 592 GUARDIAN.♦ ACCOUNTABILITY JOURNALISM

AK-47s: Guyanese Must Know More

JUNE 2026 BY: GHK LALL

A top PPP Govt worker said that the government was always tracking, in the know.  Everything under control.  In hand, a total of 33 AK-47s.  Not toy guns.  Neither air rifles nor water pistols.  But machines of mass destruction.  Yet, the man reassured Guyanese that the government was on the job.  No need to worry.  It’s then that Guyanese must worry.  What don’t they know?  What is their government not telling them?  And why?  To darken the near perfect visibility that one senior government man spoke of, another senior government official weighed in with “our ports are porous.”  Not that Guyana’s borders are porous.  But that “our ports are porous.”

Question One: is this an admission that those local equivalents of nukes entered through ports so open that they might as well be unmanned?  So non-interfering relative to being non-intrusive outposts that they don’t serve as deterrent or prohibition against the entry of machine-guns?  A machine-gun isn’t an unlicensed weapon.  When with civilians, it’s a prohibited weapon.  For good reason.  Think of a squad of men armed to the teeth with machine-guns rolling up before a Guyanese Police Station.  Think of other small companies, three or five of them, with machine-guns primed for action, in one or several opulent communities in Guyana, and with evil intentions.  I pause.  No interest in agitating fellow citizens.  Interested, though, in alerting all to the risks and exposures, and leave others to ponder these questions.

Why is the government so casual?  Behaving as though the discovery of 33 AK-47s is ordinary.  Unworthy of much urgency.  I’m all for not panicking the population.  Definitely against, on the other, minimizing by pooh-pooing the implications of these destructive armaments abounding in Guyana.  From my perspective, the government is too clever.  Its people far too nifty with soothing words.  In the current circumstances, the rawness of potential dangers must be in the public domain.  With the safety and peace of mind of Guyanese at risk, it is time for the chief national security officer of Guyana, Pres Ali, to inform the nation what the government has, where the government stands.  Two hauls totaling 33 AK-47s do not represent routines. 

The firepower and destructive power make it imperative for Pres Ali to give a statement in his own voice about the implications of these two busts, where the clues point.

One thread is the Venezuelan link.  Syndicato or Tren de Aragua?  State-sponsored or mercenaries for hire?  If the latter, then who are their recruiters and paymasters?  If not either of those two, whose interests are jeopardized (or enhanced)?  What restrains the hand of the PPP Govt?  From divulging the full story.  When the interests of the State are under threat, the public must know.  Their safety is intimately wrapped up in such threats.  Thus, Guyanese should know more.  If, however, the interests of the PPP are under siege, then Guyanese will get what they get, which is nothing.  Could this be part of what has produced such easy nonchalance from government leaders on these developments?  When Guyanese are uncomfortable, their government leaders shouldn’t be as comfortable as they have been. 

Relative to the Opposition, it perplexes that its leaders are not all over these arms bust and the ominous potential of them.

Last, there’s a Guyanese connection that flits on and off the radar.  Smooth as silk, and slipperier than an eel.  An oil-coated one.  What to make of that setup that has a long history of engagement.  Usually followed by evasion.  Clearly, that calls for a tremendous amount of muscle.  Lots of pull and plenty of clout.  Groundbreaking and far-reaching, I would say.  There is much more to this machinegun business than meets the eye.  Kamla is coming up next: protecting her people.

Guyana Dev Bank: Players likely already in Place

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THE 592 GUARDIAN|ACCOUNTABILITY JOURNALISM

JUNE 2026 —BY: GHK LALL

Guyana Dev Bank: Players likely already in Place

The Guyana Development Bank (GDB) has generated much excitement.  Not yet fully airborne, but still stirring considerable interest.  Guyanese sit, wait, smile.  They are ready.  One set anticipates what’s in it for them.  To get them off the bottom. 

Other Guyanese (guess who?) have their plans ready on how to milk this bank till it geh sickly and paglee.  For those who need clarity, rest easy.  Coming up shortly.

 The key players have already been handpicked.  Ready to rumble.  The PPP had a handful of names to choose from to move the GDB up the ladder, along the way.  There’s the way, truth, and life of Jesus.  Not the PPP way, regrettably.         

The PPP Govt has its own way.   Radically different.  In substance, results.  To condition Guyanese hopefuls, I conclude that senior positions-GDB chair, deputy chair, and CEO are as good as filled.  Done deals.  Before that GDB bill becomes law.  What’s there to debate?  There’s a seven-seat majority.  Who cares what the other sides, any Guyanese, think?  Including those who think less of the PPP’s standards of staffing?  Overseers and officers, for example.  Seven seats provide that electricity-sparking confidence [and disdain].

Qualifications for the jobs of chair, deputy chair, and CEO earn top marks for the following.  They don’t have to be thieves, but it helps

Known thieves are prized by the PPP Govt.  The logic is majestic.  Whoever teef caan taak.  The best are party loyalists who prosper when matters are upside down, shrouded in secrecy. 

Try this example.  The PPP loves overseers, commissioners, bank watchmen, senior bank officers who see a dog, hear a dog, know it’s a dog, but sell it as a duck or a donkey.

  Whoever heard a dog that sounds or looks like one of those creatures?  Best of all, are those who know how to keep their mouths shut, whatever the crimes committed.  It’s better when they’re part of the white-collar crimewave waiting inside that new bank.  With such trusted personnel seated, secrets stay secret.  Trouble is contained.  What happened in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas.  Substitute GDB for local color.

With $40 billion around, there’s plenty for PPP boys and girls to play around with, have fun.  There’s a guarantee, two to be accurate.  Freedom House has their back.  And Office of the President has its own magistracy and rubberstamp ready

Nah maan! Nat dese peeple.  Dem is good PPP people.  Look how much ting deh duh fuh de paaty.  Can’t abandon them.  Cannot, will not, throw them under the bus.  Not with all those sharks waiting to rip them to pieces.  It’s basic democracy: taking care of one’s own is taking care of business.  They are due first bites at the fruits of victory and policy.  So, what if they mess up, make their hands fast?  Stuff happens.  Nobody is perfect.

Qualifications for the jobs of chair, deputy chair, and CEO earn top marks for the following.  They don’t have to be thieves, but it helps.

 The government is quick thinking: help to fix the loan documents.  Fix is preferred.  For other people: wrong color, wrong hairstyle, and wrong relationships, the GDB is just as warm and hospitable.  Welcome, sir, madam.  Take a number.  Have a seat.  Just a little wait.  The staff is out to lunch, in a meeting, gone golfing, or off to Congress.  Free seats.  Free updates.  Few could be so classless or tasteless to want more.  Wait until they hear ‘this loan application is receiving the highest consideration.  The bull just began.  No money, no love.  No $3 million loan.  Those kinds of Guyanese are on their own.  Stage is set.  Law ready. 

The games begin.  The chair’s in place.  I think that the whole kit and kaboodle (PPP kin)-chiefs and cooks are like corruption Oreos. 

Devilishly pious on the outside, wickedly devious inside.  A bank with a shank.

Guyana Development Bank: Can be great, Can be grotesque

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THE 592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY JOURNALISM♦ JUNE 2026

Guyana Development Bank: Can be great, Can be grotesque

The PPP Govt-initiated $40 billion Guyana Development Bank (Bank) can be great.  Ordinary Guyanese, poor but harboring inspired ideas, lack capital, but an opportunity beckons.  Opportunity to rise from where they are to what they envision could be, should be.  Again, compliments to the PPP Govt for this brainchild.  What has high potential for individual, family, and community prosperity?                         Let it never be said that I didn’t extol the government.

Much has been written about the Bank.  Its innate goodness, noble charter, inspiring character.  Gnawing concerns persist.  Still, no tainting to this offering by dealing in who defends for a dollar.  Or the rancidly partisan who behold only the worst.  I see potential for the worst malfeasances in this Bank.  I detect that it can be a lifeline to Guyanese who need the monetary boost.  Above bottom-house, beyond street corners, out of the economic lowlands so prone to floods of woes that there’s weeping.  Only weeping.

I stated my thinking, position.  Another is presented.  Three precedents offered.  Should suffice.                                         There is a Natural Resource Fund Act/Law.  I point not to loopholes.  I point to its demand for “transparency and accountability.”  Who argues with laws with such clauses embedded?  Plus, withdrawals used for “national development priorities.”  Music.  Easy listening.  Guyanese listened, heard.  From a Guyana Government official, that rarest of rarities: Guyana Scholar.  He disclosed how the billions (U.S.) withdrawn from the NRF were spent in three words: “national development priorities.”  Three words “transparency and accountability”, as enshrined in the NRF Law, begat three more: “national development priorities”, also incorporated in that same law.  No more.  Not a fourth word. 

If this is what Guyanese get for spending clarity from a Guyana Scholar, what prospects from Guyana’s handpicked political dunces? 

Not one dollar, not one million, not one billion, could be shared, relative to spending specifics.  Commingling conquering accountability.  The words of a law of Guyana taken and hurled into the face of citizens, by one of its reputed best.  It’s the raw reality of Guyana’s “accountability” for its largest savings account, pursuant to law.  What fate awaits the Guyana Development Bank?

Next, there’s a law birthed 14 years ago that empowers Guyanese to access unclassified, nonconfidential, non-national security information.

  The law rusts, rots.  Guyanese seeking access have been mostly dismissed.  Light slap.  Other petitioners got dismissed, then degraded.  The law is there.  The mechanism is there.  Where is the access to information sought, as the law provides?  From that second precedent, I move to the $40 billion Guyana Development Bank.  Would obscurity to protect be among the primary workings of this multibillion-dollar Bank?  Protect who and for what? 

Ignored today are favoritism, cronyism, and nepotism.  May those never dawn.

 Only the Bank’s honest duty, transparency, and accountability.  What road ahead for this Bank that could be a flagship of incorruptibility?  The identification of its controllers (likely already selected) should inform accordingly.

Last, there is the crime of statutory rape.  When underage children are abused, that’s statutory rape.  Official reports state that 584 statutory rapes were committed in the last five years (2020-25).  The law mandates the charge of statutory rape.  Children cannot consent.  Which rapists were charged?  How many of the 584 statutory rapists were even approached by the Guyana Police, other government institutions?  Dr. Vindya Persaud (Minister) and Dr. Clifton Hicken (Police Commissioner) are respectfully invited to help: how many charged?  Only the number.  Easy for a government grown fond of its own statistics.

For the PPP Govt, for PPP leaders, there are some questions.  Why are lawbreakers (statutory rapists) elevated to parliament as lawmakers?  Why are they not charged?  There’s One Guyana optics.  And a large constituency to be kept happy.  But, by God, at the price of parliamentary obscenity?  Even when children are assaulted, and one ending it all.  It calls for an extraordinarily obscene breed of political leaders to condone first, then reward.

Thus, three examples: Oil Fund billions, access to information, and statutory rapes, as contexts.  There are governing laws for each, like the Bank.  How different will the Guyana Development Bank be?  The people’s patrimony and prosperity, their peace of mind, jeopardized.  The lifeblood of democracy (information) blocked, poisoned, then extinguished.  Protection of Guyana’s young bartered for filthy political mileage.  Laws exist for all three areas. 

Yet there are these inarguable, destructive conditions in Guyana’s environment.  Now comes this $40 billion Guyana Development Bank.  It can be a boon for the poor and hopeful. 

Maybe a bonanza for the schemers, defrauders, that makeup over 90% of PPP governance, PPP stewardship, PPP morality and integrity.

 

Soon, Guyanese shall see.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 592 𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙂𝙪𝙮𝙖𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙘𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙘, 𝙥𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙖𝙛𝙛𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙨.

Iran: Two victory parades, Then both cancelled

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THE 592 GUARDIAN ♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY♦TRUTH

Iran: Two victory parades, Both cancelled

OP-ED BY: GHK LALL

The controllers of Tehran call it a victory.  The Washington dealmaker insists he came out ahead.  Perhaps, both sides won.  Skeptics can split the difference.  My take is simple.  Somebody got out-wheeled, left with the wrong side of that peace deal.  Scratch the Persians.  Hurts to say that as an American.  But what other options are on the table?

First, there were bombs to beat the ayatollahs into submission.  Some did bite the dust.  The survivors threw more dust back at Washington and its chief bluffer.  The formula was old, battle-tested.  The friend of my enemy is my enemy.  Neighborhood airport and assets targeted.  Some screamed bloody murder behind the scenes. 

Happens to those who grow soft from sweet living.  Who needs nukes?  Why, when there are those Achilles heels right nearby?  From punishing embargoes to bunker busters, and the men in turbans still held out.  I had warned that their kind of pitched battle is not CNN material.  Nor the type that pleases Fox News and Friends.  These people know hardship.  They have weathered from Leonidas to Alexander the Great. 

They are still standing.  A little bruised and black-and-blue.  But still standing.  Fighting spirit intact.  The spirit of martyrdom itching for a showdown.

Have soldiers arrayed in a ring?  Bring ’em on!  A ring of fire is waiting.                                                                                                                     Somehow, somebody with some sense in DC finally prevailed.  This is not America’s war.  This is all Netanyahu.  A desperate gamble to get free land and lavish oil supplies.  A couple of bombs, a few dead civilians, a loss of that feeling of invincibility is a cheap price to pay.  A better Iron Dome could be built.  The U.S. Congress would see that it’s funded.  What, do otherwise, and risk losing being re-elected?

The champion warrior and master dealmaker found that his book was out of pages.  What to do?  Bring in Rawalpindi.  The Swiss had reserved a conference room. 

Iran took a battering, but got home safely.  Money.  Security.  Guarantee.  They wrote their own deal book.  So, what did Mr. Manifest Destiny take home to the American people? 

A dog with its tail between its legs.  His own people are already having a fun time, kicking it from left to right. 

 When the kicking is done, hundreds of billions are still needed.  Gone are those bad ole days of not negotiating with terrorists.  Get used to the New World Order.  In Guyanese: knack gah knack bak.  It is not easy for a man accustomed to do the smacking to get smacked around.

Hello!  What about nukes?  Well, what about them?  The Iranians bought time.                                                                                                  Washington says that’s fine.  Then concoct some strange lines.  To justify.  Pacify Netanyahu.  Smooth things over at home and abroad.  It’s smooth sailing in the Strait of Hormuz.  Never heard of something so straightforward getting so tangled up, mined up, muddied up. 

What’s next in the cauldron that’s the Middle East?  Netanyahu isn’t a fellow to take his licks lying down.  He is already plotting.  Weighing whether to rollout his own marbles.  Activating that facility buried in the desert.

Desperate men losing friends fast think the unthinkable.  Attempt the desperate, the face-saving. 

 If there could have been Dresden and Frankfurt-in-Main in Germany almost a hundred years ago, there could be Teheran.  Teach dose peeple a lesson.

Listen up, people.  Get this straight.  There’s a new bully in town.  No 80-year-old washed up has been playing at James Cagney or Russell Crowe.  If there are any people good at playing mad, there are none better than the Iranians.  They hold the cards.  They wear the smirk.  To prove.  Ceasefire shaky.  Straits of Hormuz closing.                                                                                    Still working at figuring out which side got the better deal?  Keep on figuring.                                                                                                                    Continue playing the fool.  Risk being taken for a sucker, another fall guy.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 592 𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙂𝙪𝙮𝙖𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙘𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙘, 𝙥𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙖𝙛𝙛𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙨

GECOM Seats -Laws don’t make Men, Men make Laws

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THE 592 GUARDIAN♦ ACCOUBTABILITY♦INTEGRITY♦TRUTH

GECOM Seats -Laws don’t make Men, Men make Laws

A wise political veteran weighed in on the thickening differences over GECOM commissioners.  The pros and cons.  The issues of resignations or terminations, and replacements.  What the Constitution says, and where silence filled the place of substance.  Impressive, I say.  There were many intersections.  Constitution.  Politics.  Mathematics.  Logic.  Leadership.  Practices.  Precedents.  Then, still more.  Overpowering, even more impressive, I submit.  What I offer pales in comparison.  Anemic.  Hopefully still meaningful, in this, my last round in this ring.  A little, not much.  Yet what should convey how men function differently in testing environments.  Respond to the prompts of different stimuli.

Oil blocks.  Two went out of Guyana’s hands under a cloud.  Secrecy.  A PPP big man said no law broken.  He was right according to the law.  Because there was no literal provision in the law against how those oil blocks changed hands.  Though he was right, all Guyana knew that he had it wrong.  Wrong when two tranches of the people’s precious inheritance secretly went from one hand to another.  Strange.  If aboveboard, why go underground?  In such circumstances, no law is needed to differentiate right from wrong.  Not even schooling.  Only native intelligence.  Some basic instincts.  The PPP Big Man who said no law was broken forget something.  Men make laws.  Laws don’t make men.  But, a man without the benefit of any law, with the worst constitution (or none) knows when he just must be a man.  What it takes.  Where he must stand.  How he must be.  To grow from a small man to a big man.  Whatever the education one has, there’s none to beat that kind.  Thus, I stand.

From two oil blocks, I proceed to Oil Money.  The stewardship of it, for which the law provides.  Dr. Terrence Campbell used a sophisticated word: “rubberstamp.”  It has common utility.  Then, there’s its dark side: uncommon indecency.  What a rubberstamp smears over.  When rubberstamps are put to such use, it’s celebrated here.  All Guyana can say that Terrence Campbell has it wrong.  I will swear that he has it right.  Is right on the money.  Too close for the comfort of the people who suddenly didn’t want him around it (or in their company). 

Who could be so self-degrading, an ignoramus, to swallow “national development priorities”, and conclude that their oversight responsibilities are done?  Apologies to Dr. Terrence Campbell.  But that’s not a rubberstamp.  It’s a used condom. 

Guyanese are being taken for skunks.  For politeness, I subbed skunks for another word that spells almost like it, and sounds and rhymes with it.

From oil blocks and oil money, to an (that) oil contract.  Another PPP Big Man insisted that ‘review and renegotiate’ will be the fate of all contracts.  In his sleep he had a dream.  Exxon and retention of political power.  A safe harbor was desperately needed.  Sanctity of contract was belatedly discovered, used to rescue befogged minds.  I invite Guyanese to form a jury.  Safe harbor or the sixth sense of wily political operators prioritizing protection of their own skin.  For country or men hungry for dirty power. 

 

Last, Framers of the Constitution are dead.  Refiners are alive, but might as well be not.  Such specimens of the living, walking dead they have become.  Constitutions don’t make men.  Men make constitutions.  Wrangle ever after. 

Leaders can put their heads together to find a way out of their GECOM impasse.  To find a commonsense, workable, out-of-court settlement, as such.  There are three seats in contention.  Agree to assign one to each.  Far from Solomonic logic.  Just compromise that leads to a smoother path, higher level.  Didn’t vote for the one-seat Guyanese.  But now vote for her to get one.  To build the broken.  To shout where there’s silence.  In the Constitution. 

Let’s not muzzle our minds amidst great darkness.  We have had 60 years of liberty and not advanced one step.  Six minutes could help Guyana get somewhere.

GECOM Seats: Why discuss, What’s to discuss?

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THE 592 GUARDIAN♦ TRUTH♦ ACCOUNTABILITY♦ INTEGRITY♦ JUNE 2026                                            OP-ED |POLITICS                              BY: GHK LALL

GECOM Seats: Why discuss, What’s to discuss?

Impressive and inspired are those writings addressing the issue of GECOM commissioners.  There’s a collision with stonewalls.  No PNC commissioner is moving.  The fact of public writings, positions taken, and actions recommended confirms the existence of those stonewalls of resistance. 

Immovable.  Apply whatever force believed necessary.  No PNC leader is flexing.  No PNC commissioner is resigning on his own.  Unbelievable.  There I stand.  Troubling in messages sent.

What message is sent to citizens?  It is okay to lose, but still lining up to claim a prize is right.  Is a right.

Taken to the extreme ends of Guyana’s electoral arithmetic, that claim, that reasoning, would still rule, if not a single seat is held in parliament. 

 Going beyond the beyond, if not a single vote was gained.  Something doesn’t add here.  Loose ends.  Like persistently irritating specks in the eye, they don’t leave.  If I tell fellow citizens to walk straight, play fair, and obey the will of the people, and am still looking to hang on to what is politically weak, what redounds to my discredit, then what the hell am I about?  Who am I?  What standards set for Guyana’s largest demographic, the young?

I have absorbed provisions in the Constitution read this way and that way.  Laws crafted.  Rules made.  And procedures to bolster. 

Whether all three are at their comprehensive best, or lacking in compelling power, there is still, there is always, what’s failsafe.  Failsafe, even tamper resistant.  Because it is of infallible and nonnegotiable standing when it confronts honorable men and women.  The constitution that is written within, deeply and inerasably.  The laws that are carved out and followed.  Because they are of my mind and my hand. 

For those come from the internal texts that form the basis for rules and the procedures that are followed.  Win, lose, or draw.  If when those tests of character come, I am found wanting, hedging, dodging, then I would not only have lost my head.  There would be no face left to lose.                                 The PNC should think carefully of sinking so low.

I hear that there is no such creature as a good loser; that a good loser is a loser.  I disagree.  Today and anytime such a statement is made. 

 What I have said repeatedly to PPP Govt leaders, I re-emphasize to PNC leaders.  A man, a woman, must have a code by which he or she operates.  It’s their personally inscribed Bible, Koran, Bhagavad Gita.  In good times.  In times that are so tough that there are no tears left.  The spirit is that decimated.  But it is on the tests of the worst times, that the best must come out.  For then is when that code must be followed.  In letter.  Most of all, in its spirit.  In other words, my personal constitution is more stringent, more demanding, more controlling than any national constitution, as robust as such may be.

The now forgotten side of this issue would be the 109,000 Guyanese who voted for WIN.  When they are seen as mere election fodder, inconsequential soft balls to be pitched around, then I submit that all they are worthy of is being kicked from pillar to post, for all the regard that they command.  So, who is representing them around GECOM’s table?  The stronger question is: representing what? 

What generated so much disillusionment?  What led to the electoral experimentation of Guyana’s desperate?  The dreams of Guyana’s scorned and left out, the other side of One Guyana.  When GECOM seats are disputed post September 2025, that’s not a fight for empowerment of poorly represented Guyanese. 

It’s fighting for self-perpetuation, self-empowerment.  Aggregate and summarize.  Neither termination nor resignation.  Therefore, talk of discussions.  Guyanese need, ask for, bread.  They are forced to contend with stones.

More money for Guyanese: Healing oil or Snake oil

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THE 592 GUARDIAN♦ ACCOUNTABILITY ♦ INTEGRITY♦ TRUTH

OP-ED                                                  BY :GHK LALL-JUNE 2026

More money for Guyanese: Healing oil or Snake oil

I like it.  More money for Guyanese workers.  Not private sector minimum wage workers, regrettably.  If any local workers are due more money, private sector (and public service) minimum wage workers stand out.  More money is for Guyanese in the oil industry.  Well, that’s the call, with PPP Govt Minister Vickram Bharrat doing the honors. A timely push from the government.  But as Guyanese know better than me -waan haan caan klap.  How will the oil companies and other entities, all foreign, respond to this significant government call?  I foresee a few, ah, hiccups.  Some sneezing to cause watery eyes and runny noses.  I live with allergies, so I recognize the triggers.  More money for Guyanese is a trigger, pollen shower.

More money for Guyanese workers in Guyana’s oil industry means all the companies, local and foreign, have to shell out for cash. 

The bottom line gets thinner.  Nowhere near red.  But not as green.  Not as many greenbacks to export to U.S. banks.  Not as much for local companies keeping their stashes at home. 

It has been hailed rather heartily that people are a company’s best assets.  That is, until money matters surface and get in the way.  More money, especially more pay, has historically led to bad friends and bad blood.  Simply ask Guyanese luminaries Lincoln Lewis and Seepaul Narine.  Poor Seepaul!  Even he own peeple in de PPP givin he haad kyaad fuh he peeple in de fields.  More money to be paid by foreign companies to local workers, so they are at a comparable level with their expatriate neighbors, is going to cause those companies to wince.  And, once they have to pony up, that may mean that local companies with local workers could be compelled to do something.  Not necessarily the same, but something more in the envelope.

I am trying to get ahead of foreign oil companies’ reactions.  To help my fine friend, VP Jagdeo, I have some good ones for him to ponder.  Years of experience is a walkover.  I walkover specific experience (yessir!)  Guyanese have six years under their belt.  Tick that box.  But there is that animal called equivalent qualifications.  How measured?  By whom?  Leave that box for now.  Then, there are those intangibles that PPP Govt agents have used in domestic public service arenas of recruitment, promotion, compensation: team player, leadership skills, organizational asset.  Any of these can be a weight that slows down the rate of pay growth for Guyanese workers.  Then, there’s that big, bad, one that’s both tangible and intangible: Evaluation Report.  Tangible because it’s usually on paper.  Intangible because it’s the product of something in the evaluator’s head.  A fine kettle of scorpions, that is.

Which right-minded foreign company executive, manager, willingly forks out millions more for local workers? 

However, deserving, overdue, they may be?  Business is a cold-blooded reptile.  Never about the milk of human kindness.  It’s capitalism, not Christianity.  What’s the edge, the bludgeon, that expatriates calling the shots have?  Make the evaluation unconscionably, improperly, tough, and few are the local workers that measure up.  Don’t have what it takes. 

At bottom, not qualifying for the kind of lovely money of which Minister Bharrat gushed so splendidly.  From the offshore oil rigs, the S-o-S comes: Georgetown -there’s a problem.  Few Guyanese workers are up to scratch.  How many Bobby Gossais can there be in an oil yard?  Translation: few of them have earned the right to more money.  Definitely not anywhere in the vicinity of any equality with highly-skilled, highly qualified, and highly compensated (and highly-cherished) foreign imports.  Before fellow Guyanese, I plead: don’t shortchange that abbreviation in brackets.

I welcome more moolah for Guyanese oil industry workers.  Has to be an industry now, with a million daily near happening.  Meanwhile, I remember inflation.  Apparently, PPP Govt fears have been tamed.  Thanks for the corroborating stats, Dr. de la Cruz.  Nonoil Guyanese will fall farther behind, have so survive.  Somehow.

Iran, Israel, Caracas -Georgetown, there’s a problem

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THE 592 GUARDIAN| OPINIONS| GTOWN ,GUYANA |June 2026

TRUTH♦ ACCOUNTABILITY♦ INTEGRITY♦

BY: GHK LALL

Iran, Israel, Caracas -Georgetown, there’s a problem

I hope that Pres Ali is absorbing.  I trust that Vice President Jagdeo is digesting the development.  The same goes for every Guyana opposition party leader.  America has made its call.  The chips fall wherever they do.  Israel is raging.  PM Netanyahu is reeling.  His competitors are positioning.  America is moving.  Proving once again that its own interests take precedence, are due the highest priority.

Which country could boast like Israel of a special friendship with the U.S?  A friendship so special that it is sacred; that it makes White House occupants cower (after they curse); that it pushes the vaunted U.S. Congress to tie itself into knots; that it rattles the outspoken American media, so that sections of it walk on tiptoe, as though weaving through a dangerous, treacherous, minefield.  It is and they are.  All of that faded every so slightly, lost some footing, and surrendered to the supremacy and permanency of American interests.  Iran has become a major irritation to Israel.  The deal-good or bad, well-received or well-trashed-showed in the clearest light where U.S. priorities are.  Even when a best friend, the best of the best, has to be pulled away from, given a wakeup call.

It couldn’t have been an easy call for President Trump.  Reports are that in the heated discussion, a choice word or two (not the kindergarten classroom kind) came from the American side of the red line.  Say what has to be said about Donald John Trump, but the New Yorker in him is still alive and just as brawling and inflaming.  It takes a leader like President Trump to deal (not the business kind) with a leader like PM Netanyahu.  Trump may be ready to move onto the next chapter.  Israel may have other ideas; was sure to have seen some sort of agreement in the making between Washington and Teheran, and have its contingencies in hand.

Provocation that could unravel a shaky bargain.  I dare not say sabotage, but little else is left.  Blood enemies, when forced to bury their hatchets, usually respond one way.  They bury them in each other’s head.  Too much bad blood.  Too many bad vibes: Gaza, Lebanon.  And, if there is one attribute that is prized in the sunny Middle East, it is the death-dealing heat of revenge.  Politics, geopolitics, geography, holy territory all get lost in the call of, cry for, gore.  All it takes is one slight, intended or misread, and the table is cleared.  Time to throw down.  It’s time to get back to Guyana.

I warned (humbly) Pres Ali, VP Jagdeo.  Ally with America.  But don’t lock eggs in one safe.  Keep a spare key.  Keep something in reserve.  Ali laffed.  Jagdeo mocked.  I do my duty.  American soldiers fighting by the side of Venezuelan soldiers.  In January, American soldiers were killing Venezuelans while extracting that remarkable gentleman, Nicholas Maduro, (remember him?). Meanwhile, in June American soldiers are waging war alongside Venezuelans soldiers.  Who will fight for Guyana, but poor, ole slobs, like me?  Flyover or no flyover at the last presidential inauguration.  I said once that it is good to be American.  Still stands.  But is Pres Ali still laughing?  Is VP Jagdeo still smirking?  I reintroduce Benjamin Netanyahu as a timely, haunting, reminder.

The Venezuelans were uncanny, unambiguous, and mighty unsavory, too.  No ICJ!  I ask Excellency Richard Van West Charles to convey my apologies to the Bolivarian plenipotentiary here and the powers in Caracas.  No to the ICJ means that there will be a land-for-peace deal sometime or the other.  Remember Netanyahu.  Remember my words.  For by that time, I will be gone, Trump gone, Routledge gone.  Only Drs. Ali and Jagdeo left.  Doctor’s diet and good ole fashioned oil living.  But what of Guyana and its special relationship with America?  Oh, that!  A pyrrhic victory is still a victory.  What choice left?  What’s left with leaders like Ali, Jagdeo, and the whole kaboodle?

Israel has assets, will go on battling.  Guyana has Excellency Ali, who went from Captain America to Captain Bligh.  On a boat, with neither partner nor paddle.  I pray for this country.  Pray for me, somebody.  One last thing: God bless America.  Guyana also.