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THE 592 GUARDIAN ACCOUNTABILITY JOURNALISM FOR GUYANA 

Half Share for Guyana (Get Real) -Pt II- JULY 2026

Guyanese are dreaming.  Green not white.  Not mistletoe green of Xmas.  Think the green of this country finally getting its full half share of oil profits from Exxon.  A full share that’s fair.  Accounting pure.  Arithmetic clean.  No tricks.  No gimmicks.  I wish fellow Guyanese the best, though December is distant.  They can dream.  It’s free.  Sometimes, dreams come true.  Bad ones, good ones.

I draw a line in the sand.  Make it stone.  A full half share of oil profits isn’t happening.  Dreaming, or slamming hand hard on the table, it’s not happening.  Sorry, but that’s the hard life of a messenger: delivery of more bad news than good news.  The bad news is that there will be no bona fide half share for Guyana.  For good reason.  Exxon will see to it.  The PPP Govt of A, Jay, and N will endorse, when it comes out.  Get ready, Guyanese dreamers!  Here it comes!  A sneak preview, not a leak.

Whoever never heard of more oil projects, just did.  More wells, 35 planned.  Those amphibians cost money.  Millions of American; billions in Guyanese dollars.  Whoever thought that those came compliments of the kindness of Messrs. Darren Woods and Alistair Routledge has much to learn about life.  And, American capitalism.  It was why Dr. Cheddi Jagan was made to eat dust.  With each new oil project, new hole drilled, massive amounts of nuts and bolts, hoses and wires, boats and seismic blasting (aka mapping), among the endless attachments and tools used in the oil trade will be needed.  Plus, expert expats.  Plus, fandango kinds of auditing.  The cost bank that just ran dry will be replenished.  New oil schemes, new oil activities.

C’mon, folks: dreaming Guyanese or hard-headed realists.  Production is currently at 900k a day.  Gearing up to go to 1.3 million, then 1.7 million, a day, in a year or few.  More groundworks installed; more oil extracted.  It’s the physics of oil, the biology of commerce.  So, Guyanese must get real: what real half share of profits when there’s that beehive in feverish motion?  To roll back the cost bank a billion or 20 more.

For once, Exxon showed its hand.  Sometime ago.  More projects assembled.  Stationed under Dr. Jagdeo’s nose.  Backing Guyana’s Environmental Protection Agency against a wall.  Poor chaps, they have an offer they can’t refuse.  Capitalism 101 for dummies.  Whoever thought that 2019-2020 election help was charity, get something straight.  America is not the Red Cross.  Nor were Excellencies Sarah Ann Lynch and Michael ‘the Archangel’ Pompeo reincarnations of Florence Nightingale.  All white hat and pilgrims among peasants in Guyana.  It was for Exxon, American Airlines, and Schlumberger, among other Yankee grandees.

From now, I can hear Exxon’s Routledge and the new guy, Mr. Colling, setting the table.  More projects needed to keep the oil flowing.  The oil drums floating to the surface.  The oil tankers sailing away.  The partnership prospering.  For whom in the Exxon-Guyana partnership specifically, that’s my question?  Hence, it’s a blast from the past: cost bank.  Rebuilt to bursting.  Cost recovery -necessary, so that the good times roll.  Anybody in Exxon or the PPP hierarchy interested in IHS Markit for a real audit of the new billions?  Ha-ha! Didn’t think so.

I can anticipate Drs. Ali and Jagdeo with their noble, patriotic contributions to a full, free, and fair half share for Guyana.  Not it isn’t about elections.  Only oil.  Listen to dese bruddahs: it’s for continuity, stupid!  Get with the program!  Spend money to make money.  Same question: for whom?  Yeah, after all the billions invested by Exxon and repaid by Guyana, this is the closest I come to Sisyphus, that great tragic figure of Grecian mythology.  He rolls a boulder uphill.  Overnight it tumbling back down on him.  Thus, he restarts from scratch daily.

Still dreaming of half share profits, Guyanese?  Keep dreaming.  When Exxon and the PPP finish with Guyana, this country will be a bigger, rowdier, poverty-infested lunatic asylum.  A world-class one.

THE 592 GUARDIAN — EDITORIAL BOARD

The Ali Farm –Fish, Fowl, Foals -another Episode

Land ahoy!  There’s a sheepfold.  Followed by a cow palace.  A rich field for fowls.  Then, a shrimp lake.  One could get lost in a daze.  For those are only a glimpse of what grazes in Guyana’s Pres Ali’s grand garden.  A mere handful of what teems in Excellency Ali’s lush nature resort.  His Animal Farm that functions with Space Age precision.  And a budget to match.

By any count, Pres Ali’s pastoral paradise tucked behind the stone façade and bushes of the Soesdyke-Linden Highway is like a Rockefeller Trust.  A combination of hacienda and encomienda; one fitting for a maharajah.  Only the best for the best: in beauty, what billions make happen.  I congratulate Pres Ali on his prowess with remarkable success.  I plead with my national leader: a president who is more than a president.  One bigger and better than any Wall Street powerhouse.  Move over Morgan Stanley.  PPP Guyana has Mohamed Irfaan Ali.  What’s the secret, skipper, of all this success?  I won’t tell.

 Remember: back then he was only a minister.  When he was earning less than a million, maybe half, monthly.  I learn again about ‘too big to fail.’  Ah, the talent to identify a tycoon on the move, a star waiting to be born.

I recall that it was in Guyana’s sleepy, prehistoric, paleolithic age.  That is, its distressed nonoil era.  Loans were low.  Movement was slow.  But the president said it: loans.  I congratulate the now president on his superb, platinum, creditworthiness back then.   I behold a budding fairytale in the making, waiting to burst into the scene.  Taking notes.  Must scribble one of those.  Try this title: Dreams come true.

What was needed in circumstances involving big lands for a big man with a big appetite for risk was a big bank. Perhaps, a syndicate of such big banks required.  To cushion the risks of lending enormous sums for a project of that spectacular dimensions. Banks exist for risk-taking, don’t they?  On a conservative scale, naturally, since it’s other people’s money.  For the dead certain, can’t lose stuff-special livestock breeds, rare aquaculture species, a riot of seeds, and other Medellin-type arboreal touches-put into it.  Those all cost quite a bundle of millions.  Think billions.  It would take more than one bank to lend one man that many millions. 

A consortium taking big risks based on what collaterals, what assurances, what guarantors?  Those are the products of my inquiring mind.  Regarding guarantors, who would those be?  Pres Ali should find it easy to trot them out and line them up.  Former presidents could be among such helpful souls.  Ready to give a young man a break.  A good deed done.  But what about the little people of Guyana?  What strokes for such folks?

Street level, grassroots, minibus riding Guyanese have to line up, wait, and hold their breath for 10 years or more for a single plot of land.  There must be a different standard at work for other citizens.  Those who are not political leaders, not business leaders, not government ministers, and not members of parliament.  Because it seems that for every square inch of house lot space that a teacher, soldier, or pensioner is awarded, fat cats and bigshots snare an acre.  And what takes 10 years for the small people require 10 hours, maybe 10 minutes, to get approved by the relevant authorities for Guyanese big people.  If all this is off the reservation, then I plead to the kind in Guyana for enlightenment.  Where am I going wrong?

Truly World-class

Land ahoy!  Compass bearings: Long Creek, Linden Highway.  Pres Ali is in for many a long day.  There’s a silver lining.  Excellency Ali says he has the goods.  They had better be good.

THE 592 GUARDIAN ◊ACCOUNTABILITY◊OBJECTIVITY◊JOURNALISM FOR GUYANA 

Pres Ali: Be wise, Go beyond the Norm -Pt III

The disclosures pinpointed monumental asset accumulations with Pres Ali’s name immovably affixed.  He has acknowledged that the farm property is his.  A great start.  So also, all the inanimate structures, and all the thriving, exotic, life forms, that form part of a physical animal farm.  He admits they have been in his portfolio for years.  Years prior to his ascendancy to the number one office in Guyana.  It’s not an office to be trifled with: many citizens revere the very title.  Even seen by some as sacred.  Due to the developments now moving like an out-of-control avalanche around this much-talked about farm, and not in a good way, Pres Ali has his work cut out for him.  He must go all out to protect the presidency.  He must leave no stone unturned in his efforts to help the presidency emerge from a grim condition to a clean light.                                                                                       

One that’s better than when this deluge of revelations shocked Guyanese silly, and left them stunned.  My kind counsel to the president is that he proves he has nothing to hide.  And because he has nothing to fear, there will only be the straightest, cleanest, and most persuasive of outcomes about this farm. 

Neither subterfuge nor complexity will intervene in the days ahead.

In the aftermath of Mr. Azruddin Mohamed’s disclosures, it’s vital that Pres Ali discerns that he has a matter before him that calls for the best that’s in him.                                     He defends himself strongly, while manifesting new levels of wisdom.  The wisdom that goes beyond himself.  Place this whole matter, Mr. President, in the hands of others.  Others outside of Guyana.  He is the sitting head-of-state.  Hence, it is not in the best interests of himself and Guyana for this matter to be reviewed and pronounced upon by Guyanese.  Wrong move. 

 They have raised more questions and controversy than provided answers and closure.  Recommendation: place this locally insoluble matter in foreign hands.  For full disclosure of the facts, as tracked and treated.  From how they came into existence, to identification of all involved parties.

It would help immensely if the Integrity Commission Act is amended to allow disclosure of submissions in situations such as these.  Frankly,, I do not support any arrangement where the assets of politicians are kept secret.  This would cover from their earnings to their acquisitions to their liquidations.  Further, any amended Integrity Commission Act must provide for a majority of its members to be drawn from civil society, as nominated by civil society.  From that majority a chair is chosen.  Of what strength, what utility is a chair, chosen by a government, when a member of that same government, has to be scrutinized?

President Ali, any politician, any public servant, has a right to mount the most vigorous defense when claims are made about their conduct in office.  I endorse that to the fullest. 

Using the same standard, the public, the taxpayer, the electorate, is entitled to an inquiry that is hoped to be authentic, appears to be authentic, and is authentic.  In its probity.  In the quality of its work and output.  In the confidence that it inspires.  There is a system.  It is working and it delivers.

I wish Pres Ali well.  I wish also that he would be most seriously engaged in allowing full ventilation of what is encircled and embedded in his farm cum estate.  Through those wishes, I think that much could be achieved.  The air must be cleared.  So that this matter is put to rest., once and for all.