Resign or Remove -Leading to What?

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 THE 592 GUARDIAN ♦ ACCOUNTABILITY JOURNALISM FOR GUYANA

Resign or Remove -Leading to What?

OPINION BY: GHK LALL 

Calls fly with increasing speed for heads to roll.  Officials must fall for the MV Barima tragedy.  More for the misinformation disseminated.  Less for the losses.  Whether resignation or removal, what difference does it make?  Where’s the positive for the Guyanese people?  They need truth and justice.  Not roping in the MV Barima fallout and continuing with obscuring.  The past is the best teacher.

A senior public servant was sent into the shadows by the PPP Govt.  Who won, who lost?  Certainly, it wasn’t the senior public servant, who may have had wings clipped publicly, but is now a bigger bird.  Another public official, also of considerable rank, was allowed to resign, only for a greater accumulation of power to occur.  This is a true-and-tried PPP tactic that cleverly retreats in the face of advancing public anger, only for the maneuvers at which the party is so skilled to takeover. 

When a man or a woman in the PPP Govt that has erred egregiously is reluctantly withdrawn from the public space, they don’t disappear from the scene.  There’s always a Congress waiting to welcome them, to garland them with more honors.  Hence, what purpose resignation or removal?  A charade in the past for temporary public appeasement, then a rebound later.  Often in the open, and with a finger wagged in the face.  See!  This is the PPP Way.  How it’s done!

As much as Guyanese call for heads to roll, and as much as I endorse, environmental and political reality intrudes into the picture. 

Force one to resign and the majority in the PPP Govt family would have to be sent packing.  Fire one, and many more have to be fired.  This is how one State agency after another has deteriorated and disintegrated.  One resigns or is terminated, and the whole damn governance structure could collapse under it accumulated weights. 

Incompetence pronounced.  Inefficiency extensive.  Corruption – the national political culture.  One aspect is of executives converted to envoys.  The MV Barima cannot be the tip of iceberg.  It’s underwater.  The MV Barima is an indication of the widespread nature of a killer virus, the crippled condition in which Guyana is left.

What’s the remedy?  Guyanese need leaders, ministers, and senior public officials to possess some minimum honesty.  Some decency helps, with class seen and noted.  If there could only be a little self-respect in the corridors of power, it may inspire some authentic respect for the people.  Not some superficial, hypocritical statement cobbled together in the midst of a tragedy (and a mystery absentee) for the sake of putting any something before the nation.  Callout one minister, or push out another, and be ready for the replacement who is likely to be cut from the same cloth as the ousted, maybe even worse.  If that could be contemplated.

Simple people don’t know much about these matters related to resignations and removals.  Humble families are at a loss on how to cope in the terrors and torments of their newly arrived grievous circumstances.  The badly buffeted need to be comforted.  The hollowed out (multiple family members lost) shrink from the thought of how they themselves are going to survive.

Belatedly creeping forward from under the ashes of the MV Barima’s descent to the depth is Excellency Ali.  A ‘full, thorough, and independent investigation’ has been committed to publicly.  If only I could lean on that, run with it.  Guyanese have heard that before. 

To remind: helicopter crash that killed five soldiers; Mahdia Dorm conflagration that incinerated 20 youths.  What the people of Guyana were handed was a PPP Govt style and an Ali standard of ‘full, thorough, and independent investigation’ in both instances.  One cannot be allowed in the daylight (crash report); the other was such a farce that it insulted the living and the dead.

There was a method at work before.  The wheels are already in motion.  Say the right things.  Wait for time to pass.  Give room for memory and interest and passions to fade.  Present an investigation that is a con game.  Then, return to PPP Govt paradise, smug in the satisfaction of another snow job pulled (or dumped) on lost or uncaring Guyanese.

 

 

 

The Numbers: What They Say (And Don’t)

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THE 592 GUARDIAN

Accountability Journalism · Georgetown, Guyana

The Numbers: What They Say (And Don’t)

I owe Guyana’s chief statistician.  He has enlightened.  Numbers, real crackling numbers.  What happened to that other number?  The one apparently causing so much agitation that it suffers from extended constipation.  Can’t come out, cannot pass.  Many great numbers, but a vital one missing, then another.

Over a million now living in Guyana.  Growth is good.  Population growth is good for a country so rich, one lacking capacity.  Helps to close gaps, ease stresses.  A separate stress intervenes, however.  Man to man can be so unjust, as the Jamaican songster so rightly said.  All these good people counted with such diligence, yet with a difference that’s distinctive.  What were they made of: plaster or putty?  Alabaster or asbestos?  

The numbers bureau can count.  But it can’t count the kinds of people that Guyana has.  Restrained expression or subtle omission?  There was a line item about how many foreigners in the preliminary census report.  With admission about uncertainty about quantity.  I like honesty.  But what about the levels of ethnicity of the various Guyanese groups? Those contributing heavily to that million, plus 25,000 more.

It is unlikely that all of the Bureau of Numbers field workers wore highly tinted glasses.  Or, operated solely at night.  Meaning, that they couldn’t detect black from brown, and who was not so dusky but bronze.  Instead of Guyanese being presented as a rainbow, there is a bow sending an arrow to the belly: shut up and sit down.  Be invisible.  I am trying for ways to overlook the blank space in the ethnicity column of the census disclosure(s).  It could be that when questioned about their racial composition, Guyanese composed a different story, a safe one.  They identified as “Other.”  With so many Latins from the region congregating in Guyana, it would be the safest bet for Indo and Afro and Indigenous Guyanese to identify themselves as “Hispanic.”  

Whether so or not, there is this sensitivity with declaring the ethnic makeup in Guyana’s population.  If not now, then when?  If not some other time, then will it be ever? 

Another side of me ponders if this lack of ethnic specificity is a tribute to the One Guyana movement.  No separate races.  Aal ah wee is waan.  What better representation of One Guyana!

Time for a reality check.  To face the color of the local ground.  When the Bureau of Statistics is so stubbornly resistant with sharing the ethnic proportions in Guyana’s population, what’s responsible?  Study from this angle: if the traditional base of the PPP Govt had expanded to, or maintained, a comfortable numerical (percentage) edge in the local population, that stat would already be in the public domain.  A cause for quiet celebration.  Persuasive proof of electoral strength.  To put differently, a convincing source of credible electoral power.  With lesser or negligible dependence on foreign and other votes.  Ah, the mystery, more secrecy.  

My position is that the Stats Bureau’s ongoing obfuscation of ethnic numbers in Guyana is neither accidental nor due to the regular difficulties in data gathering.  Because genuine ethnic numbers, in whatever form they are, may be indicative of a narrowing of the gap between the two major ethnicities in Guyana, I think that explains the Bureau’s dilemma.  Migration, family planning, and career priorities, individually or jointly, could have reversed the statistical history that has prevailed from the inception.  Hence, the government’s anxiety about publishing the ethnic numbers/percentages.  To repeat: if old ethnic numbers held, they would be old news.  If a sea change occurred, that explains the withholding.  Nothing to write home about.

Last, the Bureau’s hands are tied.  There’s a desire to complete that public gap in its work, and get on with some of its other work.  But orders must be followed.  Amid exciting numbers, the poverty rate is another unknown. 

Where does that stand?  What does it say?  About Guyanese existence, standards, amidst a big, oil boom

MV Barima: There Are Days Like These

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THE 592 GUARDIAN ◊ Accountability Journalism ◊ Georgetown, Guyana

MV Barima: There Are Days Like These

OPINION BY: GHK LALL- July 2026

Everything comes to a pause.  Writings already sent suspended.  There is only one development to share a word about: the MV Barima.  one word, and a whole barrel of pain.  A disaster greeting long before the sun showed its face on a Sunday.  Of all days, a Sunday.  The hopes and prayers started with the first words of the 07:30 Mass at the Brickdam Cathedral.  So many found, embraced, and cheered.  So many still missing, leaving an empty space.  Amid the manmade disasters on land in Guyana, there is this kind of grim disaster on the waters.  The numbers are not looking too inspiring.  The bells toll.

I read of 116 aboard.  Then it was 133, when the crew was counted.  Approximately eight hours after the news broke, 70 were rescued and close to that number still not in hand.  A dismal consideration when only adults are involved.  Children numbered among those onboard that now capsized ferry.  A terrible new dimension added.  My hope, my wish, my prayer, is that all are saved.  Not one soul is lost.  The odds of that happening are daunting.  Ten miles from shore is almost as far as the other end of the world.  Nevertheless, rescue operations are in full motion.  The government has mobilized.  Good.  The national leadership is engaged and alert.  Better.

Now is not the time to lose a minute debating the state of new helicopters.  Nor to speculate about the number of lifejackets.  Currently, there is a search and rescue operation going on, and that is where all eyes should be fixed.  It’s where all Guyanese hearts should be committed.  Every hour that passes is an hour that cannot be recovered.  Reality that is hard and unforgiving creeps forward remorselessly.  Another hour lost could mean that one more was lost.  Too late to make it through the day for a mother, or a father, maybe a grandmother or a child.  I saw some pictures and they were of very young children, some not close to 10, as yet.

It should emphasize to every Guyanese how fragile life could be.  It does so to me.  What’s taken as routine goes overboard and sinks in a heartbeat.  Quite literally.  In a flash, life races past the eye.  Though far away and out of harm’s way, those are the images that register.  Having been near to shattering disaster more than once, there is some idea of the shock that must have jarred many out of their sleep.  A passenger boat slammed by a force of nature, a battering ram wall of water.  Men, women, and children left naked and imperiled before the elements at their rawest.

I am hoping for two things to follow beyond this prayer dripping from my pen.    They are the thoughts that rise, will not go away.  The first is that the fewest are lost; and that search and rescue do not give way to salvage and retrieve.  Indeed, like that ancient sage of a scribbler said: there is a time for laughing, and there is a time for mourning.  Even if only a handful never makes it back, it is still one handful too many.  However tiny. 

And whatever the number that is not found, there is still that tragedy to be faced by family and community: lost at sea.  Gone to the depths.  Lack of closure adds crisis to family calamity.

The second and final thought is that the people of this young country—from young leader(s) to largely younger citizenry to a place rich with young visions that still sparkle-arrive at a clear and deep appreciation of what is needed to make neighbor and others better.  There is too much bickering and cursing.  There is too much disagreeing, on the one hand, and too much demonizing and damning, on the other.  There is a storehouse of riches, but of real riches there is too much poorness.  In counting the hours,

I am keeping vigil, counting the numbers being picked up, flashing across the screens.  Let there be as many as could be.

 A good score, Sir Gary

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THE 592 GUARDIAN.                                                                        OPINION.                                            A good score, Sir Gary

BY: GHK LALL

By any standards, 89 has to count as a good score.  When the atmosphere is muggy, and the environment is hostile, 89 is a great stay at the wicket.  Sir Garfield St Aubyn Sobers had the innings of his life.  Opening bowler, first slip fielder, middle order batter, and successful leader.  A larger-than-life figure.  On and off the field.  Gary Sobers was he.  When the sweet thwack of the willow on leather echoed through the shortwave radio, I knew that the red orb left the tarmac at bullet train speed.  To seek rest in some cow pasture in the forlorn hope of being allowed to enjoy a little respite, some peace and rest.

Sir Garfield was the terror of bowlers.  Once he was in the middle, they could tie the field in a muddle, and it didn’t matter: the middle of a straight bat showing who was master of the situation, owner of the field of battle.  Talk about Maradona and Messi of Argentina, or Edson and Socrates of Brazil, and the West Indies had Sir Gary and Sir Frank, Rohan and Kallicharran, and Andy and Wesley.  This region has had its share of legends, and Gary

Sobers was right there among them.  Lords and Wisden, the meccas of that throne of kings, that sceptered isle.  From Bourda to Bridgetown. Bombay to Brisbane, Gary Sobers lit the fields afire.  Many a time, it was from the Pavilion End.  Many more times, it was from the batsman’s end.  The pigeon-toed crawl that broke into a whir of arms, a blur of knees and ankles. The nonchalant walk to the wicket in times of peril, that languid athletic slouch that disguised grim determination and warrior ethos.  Thou shalt not prevail today.  West Indies with its back to the wall.  The clouds hanging ominously overhead.  Sir John Arlott, sizzling like lightning from the safety of the BBC box.  Now, that was cricket.  Wicked cricket.  Lovely cricket.  And Gary Sobers was the king of any wicket.  A performer of outstanding exploits with bat and ball before many a crowd.

Those were the days my friends.  When men were men.  They then lived like them when the day was done.  Hoisted tumblers while reminiscing about many a John Snow bouncer, or an Alan Davidson swinger.  They also reported for work, another duel in the sun, the next day.  None of this fancy stuff about gyms and vitamins, when a number of laps in stifling heat would get the blood going.  Though chilly temps and Bengali curries, amid outback firebrands and myopic umpires, around jeering crowds and cheering hero-worshippers, there was Sobers like an old gladiator of the Roman arena.  Strutting his stuff.  Flashing his bat.  And sending the stumps of Sir Geoffrey Boycott cartwheeling across the bleak moors of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Yorkshire.

Sobers was a man who dared the odds.  At time, I felt that he dared the gods.  There was no limit to his talent.  He would bend his back to deliver a searing yorker.  Bend his bat to send another whizzer straight back past the opposing flamethrower, but only faster.  A test of wits that was more a test of wills.  Who wants to win more!  Who is willing to lay all on the line and die for it!  I regret that a lengthy timeout has been called on those attributes that made West Indies cricket great, that made it feared and respected.  What we have now are the mythologies that are based on the brawn and blood of honest toil.  Garfield St Aubyn Sobers was a champion among champions.  Arise, Sir Garfield!  Ascend and take honored place among the other great stars that light up the cricketing sky. 

It was my privilege to listen, to watch, and to read of this cricketing grandmaster in that glorious era when West Indies cricket stood at the pinnacle and ruled the world.  Thanks for the timeless grandeur.

The unforgettable moments that will always be incomparable.  Rest easy, Sir Gary.

A Farm, a Felony -Guyana’s Relativity Theory

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THE 592 GUARDIAN ♦ ACCOUNTABILITY JOURNALISM FOR GUYANA JULY 2026

A Farm, a Felony -Guyana’s Relativity Theory

OPINION BY: GHK LALL 

Five years are an eternity.  Cold-blooded murder.  A trail quickly gone cold.  Cold trail or calculated coverup?  A family left with the chill of their tears.  There was the uneasy feeling that missing links ought not to be.  What linkages, missing or not, and why?  One thing was certain: the whole story, the true story, of the Fagundes (Paper Shorts) execution was not forthcoming.  Then another: it shouldn’t be that unsolvable.  And still another: operation of law, application of law, enforcement grittiness and energy, and blindfolded justice were shadows of themselves.  Now, I follow this trail of untimely death, the passage of time, and another untimely development: the discovery of a farm.

What does a farm have to do with a heinous felony?  One that spilled its blood all over Guyanese consciousness. 

Neither a body nor any telltale splatter of blood was found on the farm.  Both savaged the peace and curdled on the pavement of the aptly named Main Street.  Yet, when I think of this, the question is why is a farm and many felonies coming up close to one another?  In other words, no mention of a farm, no mention of any felony.  Strange country, this Guyana is.  For five years, silence reigned. 

But like Banquo’s ghost in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, so also the ghost of Mr. Paper Shorts wouldn’t remain still.  The timing is immaculate.  Follow me.  If pain is added to the Fagundes family, apologies.  But no eggs cracked, no scrambled eggs.  Perhaps, unscrambled fits better.

Murder occurred, stayed underground for five long, punishing years.  Murder took less than five short days to be exhumed.  Maybe, with wheels spinning furiously, it was five hours, if not five minutes.  For a murder to be retrieved from the deepfreeze and paraded before the Guyanese public.  When developments are too pat, that’s when I rock back, reel in any slack, and work to crack the code.  From American football, I share sporting folklore: the best offense is an aggressive defense.  Attempting to takedown inspires greater efforts at returning the favor -twofold, threefold, manifold.  The development in the shadow of America’s Fourth of July ecstasies was of a placid farm, babbling brooks, clandestine nooks and crannies, and then Gotterdammerung.  A blitzkrieg: murder, Maimi Vice equivalents, more mystery.

In a jiffy, there’s a fluent, compelling story for citizens.  A suspect resurrected.  A circle of suspected involved cornered and corralled.  Before the farm, there was nobody.  Immediately after the farm discovery, there are more warm bodies than a submerged submarine surfacing.  This has all the precision timing of a well-made Swiss watch.  Swiss or Guyanese, that’s my thrust.  What I think, where I stand.  The clock ticks.  It also stinks.  Uncanny how after the first leaf and stone of that farm were arrayed in public display, that a murder was dug up and similarly displayed.  Where suspects only existed under the radar in earlier times, in these stormy times, those same suspects now participate in primetime presentations.

In all this, the PPP Govt’s well-refined art form is exhibited.  What works for it, but what also reveals.  When the PPP Govt has no defense, deflection becomes its flaming sword.  Deflection follows denial and precedes damnation.  Are all those not unfolding in tight formation?  In efforts at locating some elusive credibility.  What are the final objectives: to nail an opponent and be done with an inconvenience, an irrepressible, insoluble nuisance?  When the law takes forever to find its feet in Guyana, then lawlessness is a marathon runner.  For when there is in inversion of justice, what law?  When the timeline of a murder is seemingly tampered with, then whither honesty?  I behold the PPP Govt’s abandonment of all interests in, all claims to, all pretensions at, morality.  Cocooned in the pile of obscenity is a travesty.  Of justice.  Of conscience.  In toto, Guyanese are dealing with more than a crisis of circumstances combining.  They are living with a crisis in governance.  Why was this murder allowed to fester restlessly for five years?  And only now given oxygen?  

I wish I could hold a brief, stand in defense, for all parties in this deformity.  I cannot.  I hear and read.  I see, think, and speak.

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

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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.

Halfwit Accounting: Half for Exxon, Half  for Guyana?

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THE 592. GUARDIAN.♦ ACCOUNTABILITY JOURNALISM FOR GUYANA 

Halfwit Accounting: Half for Exxon, Half  for Guyana?

The time for sparring is over.  So, also, is room for dancing around and dodging.  A full, accurate, credible 50 percent of oil profits is now due to Guyana.  Exxon must be a partner.  An authentic partner with accounts that match.  The PPP Govt must put aside its own priorities and push for a real half of profits now the right of Guyana.  The time is now.  Let there be a genuine half that can absorb the weight of any scrutiny.  Override the language of all controversies.  First, the surrounding facts that overwhelm any arguments, any differences.

 US$55 billion invested, there was US$4.5 billion outstanding for Exxon on December 31, 2025.  A fact announced by Exxon itself.
Fact Two: Conflict between the U.S. and Iran that spread beyond a strategic strait powered oil prices upwards.  The conflict began on Feb 28, 2026.  Up went oil prices. 
Fact Three: a range of average prices per barrel could be used: US$80, US$70, even US$60 each, and Guyana already would have cleared that US$4.5 billion outstanding at the close of 2025.

Fact Four: Guyana has been producing 900,000 barrels of oil daily before 2026 started, has continued at that level for the first six months of this year. 
Fact Five: operating 24/7, Guyana would have produced 900,000 times 91 days times US$80 a head (and this is for Q2 alone). 

Fact Six: that is the equivalent of about US$6.5 billion. 
Fact Seven: I return to Fact One: Guyana owed US$4.5 billion to Exxon on Jan 01, 2026.

 At this point, everyone is urged (Guyanese and Americans) to note some discretions that I exercised.  First, Q1 2026 is ignored.  But the US$4.5 billion outstanding should have been gone, or close to eliminated, in that first quarter, considering daily production rates.  Second, using a prewar lower average of US$60 per barrel, and a 7-day Exxon operation/production week at 900,000 barrels daily that is US$4.8 billion (900,000 X 89 X US$60).  Third, using that lean oil price number (after one full month of war from Feb 28) and 75 percent taken from the top (post royalty), Guyana would have owed Exxon less than US$1 billion when the second quarter commenced.  I invite others to challenge, take apart, my arithmetic that hands Exxon money and time on a platter.  And to the disadvantage of this country and its peoples.

With the full second quarter of production and higher oil prices behind Exxon’s belt, there is no way that the balance in the cost bank is not history.  Gonzo.  No mas.  Over and out for the count.  In other words, what was due to Exxon, that has been honored in full.  Therefore, this second quarter is crucial, represents the beginning of a new oil earnings era for Guyana.  I call it hard.  I charge at it head-on.

Guyana’s half of profits can no longer be half of 25 percent.  The half from that 25 percent that is left after 75 percent cost recovery.  Whatever cost recovery there had to be, it has been recovered in full.  Simply put: no cost recovery, no cost bank.  For emphasis and to beat this one to death: no 75 percent to be dealt with means that there is no 25 percent to be contended with, left to be divided.  Forget about an average price of US$80 a barrel.  At a lower average price of US$70 a barrel in the second quarter, and 900,000 barrels produced daily, that is US$5.6 billion in oil revenues.  Exxon and the PPP Govt are now standing over US$5.6 billion for Q2 2026 alone.  The sharing now has to be, must be, half for one and the same half for the other from 100 percent of revenues minus operating expenses.

I watch to observe where Exxon stands on this, what it will present to Guyanese.  Last, I watch to learn where Guyana’s PPP Govt is, and how it approaches this open-and-shut situation.  I exhort both to do justice by the Guyanese people.

THE 592 GUARDIAN 

Birdland, Meadowland, Fantasyland: Pres Ali: Do More

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THE 592 GUARDIAN

EDITORIAL  ·  ACCOUNTABILITY & GOVERNANCE

Birdland, Meadowland, Fantasyland: Pres Ali: Do More

OPINION  BY: GHK LALL

I have an obligation to serve my president.  Dr. Irfaan Ali isn’t the president of a rugby club.  Mohamed Irfaan Ali is the President of this Republic.  With that comes his own obligations.

Pres Ali must be the clearest, cleanest, and most credible example of transparency and accountability in this country.  A model he should be, must be.  No ifs.  No ands.  No buts.  Let it be.

 Some of his helpers have tried to run interference for him.  He who asserts must prove.  The asserter furnished the nation with a suitcase of images, numbers, substances.  Plus, a wounding, matching narrative.  Not so much one that pins Pres Ali on the ropes.  But one that diminishes the presidency, the highest, once most honored height in this country. 

One bowed before, heralded.  If only out of concern for the high office that he holds, the president has to lay bare his numbers, his arrangements; the trail of his accumulations.  Adjacent to those must be the underpinnings that hold them aloft.  Stated differently, Excellency Ali must present his soul.  In all of its pristine cleanliness, odors.  And, he should not obscure anything.  So that the suspicions and interpretations that flourish do not inflict an injustice on him.  He, Irfaan Ali, would set a standard for those 20 Common Entrance youngsters that achieved perfection.

For every number that Azruddin Mohamed laid in public, the people’s parliament, Irfaan Ali should counter with a number that dispels.  One fully documented, clearly supporting.  For every picture that Mr. Mohamed presented, Mr. Ali should have a picture of his own that confronts and towers above that of his political adversary, once his bosom buddy.  For who is better equipped to know and spill secrets than a bosom buddy?  When friendship sours, and a bitter public divorce occurs?                                                                            Mr. Mohamed gave Guyanese full-blown portraits of the president’s extensive, exotic, sophisticated, and delectably luscious farm.  Pres Ali cannot limit himself to sketches.  Tight sketches as though he is afraid of straying off-script, trapping himself.  Pres Ali has to do more.  He must.  Guyanese are owed.  When they are struggling, their president is soaring.  When they are hurting, Pres Ali is celebrating his rich holdings.  Shouldn’t be.  It’s why Mr. Ali must do more.  He, his government, his people have demonstrated considerable skills with charts, graphs, timelines, mileposts, and arrival depots.  The president has to go to work.  Deliver.  Not more of what obscures.  But of what is openness itself.  Speeches have their uses.  They have their limits.  Nothing can surpass the substances and stories behind those words.  The back stories.

One story is that the president is entitled to privacy.  As a private citizen, definitely; as the most public office, most definitely not.  Is DJ Trump happy to see his business billions broadcast before the world!  Pres Ali volunteered and battled for public office.  The presidency comes with the gift of a goldfish bowl.  He is inside it.  Blowing smoke, misting the glass, makes his outline bigger, his shadow longer, his movement shakier. 

Citizens watch, come to their own conclusions.  Guyanese have read, digested, news of other national leaders in this region, who have been slapped with all manner of charges on demitting office.  The goldfish glass case wiped clean.  All the rubbish that accumulated inside is dealt with then, with verdicts delivered.

Pres Ali has a history.  Untidy it is.  Plenty agility manifested.  Of saying great things.  Then goring himself.  Recall: unity, transparency, accountability.  Where is transparency when the oxygen of democracy (access to information) is crippled, then cursed, and made into comedy material?  Where is unity, when there is a Mocha and IDPADA-G, and disparity in the distribution of the riches from the people’s patrimony?  What can be said about accountability, when billions of American dollars are withdrawn from the Oil Fund, and accountability is reduced to the majesty (or malignancy) of three words: national development priorities? 

Pres Ali may have truth and righteousness on his side.  But his history of presenting inspiring words, then pulling away from backing them up, has now come back to haunt him.  He puts up and puts out, or he risks pickling himself in caustic soda.

 I advise.  Publicize all the acreage owned.  From initiation to progression to aggregation.  Present all related documents.  I’s dotted and t’s crossed.  Dots connected.  A bright Irfaan Ali narrative emerges.  Azruddin Mohamed declines into darkness.  His video boomerangs and bludgeons him out of contention.  Beyond any hope of recovery. 

Just this once, Mr. President: stand.  Show hand.  Share farm facts.  Set the Guyanese people to sit in fair, honest judgment.  I advise.  Pres Ali should consent.

THE VENDOR WAS NEVER ARM’S-LENGTH

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THE 592 GUARDIAN ◊ ACCOUNTABILITY JOURNALISM FOR GUYANA                                   

THE VENDOR WAS NEVER ARM’S-LENGTH

What
By Staff -Writer.| The 592 Guardian | July 2026

When U92 Energy Corp. filed the paperwork describing its January 2026 acquisition of LIA Industries Pte. Ltd. — the Singapore holding company that controls Guyana’s only uranium project — it described the seller of the historical technical dataset that anchored the deal as an “arm’s-length vendor.” That phrase does real work in a corporate filing. It tells shareholders and regulators that the two sides of a transaction had no prior relationship, no shared ownership, no reason to trust one another’s numbers except the numbers themselves. It is the language of a clean transaction between strangers.
It does not appear to be true.

Following the footer
Gibraltar-based ROPA Investments Limited is the firm that, according to Kaieteur News’ reporting on the acquisition filing, secured off-take rights to 50% of the first 40 million pounds of uranium oxide produced at Kurupung — an option on up to 20 million pounds — plus a 2% net concentrate royalty over the prospecting licences that runs indefinitely, regardless of whether those licences are ever converted into a mining licence. That much was already public. What wasn’t yet connected in the coverage is who ROPA actually is, and what it already owned before the ink dried.

ROPA’s own website lists its uranium holdings under a section titled “Offtakes & Streams,” which includes a line item called “Lia energy fuels (Uranium).” That line links directly to lia.energy — the website of LIA Energy, whose homepage names five projects: Skull Creek, Kurupung, Firawa, Warmbad, and Virka. LIA Energy’s footer credits “ROPA INVESTMENTS” as its parent, and the site’s contact address routes through an @ropa.gi email domain — the same corporate family, not a separate counterparty.

Separately, ROPA’s own “Mining Verticals” page states plainly that since 2020, ROPA has owned and developed nearly 600 million pounds of global uranium assets, some of which have since been joint ventured, listed, or sold to other strategic parties.
Put together, this means the entity U92 described in its filing as an “arm’s-length vendor” of the Kurupung dataset was, in substance, ROPA’s own uranium platform — the same group that simultaneously walked away from the transaction holding a 50% off-take on first production and a perpetual 2% royalty.

LIA Industries wasn’t a disinterested seller cashing out of an asset. It was the vehicle through which ROPA built the position, before restructuring the ownership through a Canadian TSX Venture Exchange shell to give the project a public listing, a share price, and access to retail and institutional capital markets — while ROPA retained the economic upside on the ground in Guyana.
This is not necessarily improper under Canadian securities law — “arm’s length” is a defined term with its own tests, and it is possible for related parties to satisfy it depending on control thresholds and disclosure. But the pattern matters for a Guyanese readership for a different reason: it changes who was actually negotiating on the other side of the table when Guyana’s own regulatory involvement was limited to issuing an exploration licence.

GGMC’s role, precisely stated
To answer the direct question: nothing in the public record indicates GGMC had any role in structuring, reviewing, or approving the ROPA off-take agreement, the royalty, or the LIA/U92 share purchase. GGMC’s documented involvement begins and ends with the issuance of two Exclusive Prospecting Licences — GS14: L-1003/000/23 and GS14: L-1003/001/23 — to LIA (Guyana) Inc. on 19th April, 2024, granting exclusive rights of occupation and exploration for uranium, other radioactive minerals, and rare earth elements through 18th April, 2027, extendable to 2029.

Everything else — the 18th June, 2026 off-take agreement, the LIA/U92 share purchase, the dataset acquisition, the royalty buyback terms — occurred entirely at the level of corporate ownership, offshore, across Singapore, Ontario, and Gibraltar. GGMC licenses the ground.

It has no evident mechanism to review who owns the company holding the licence, what that company has promised third parties about future production, or whether the “vendor” in a related-party transaction is actually related. That is a structural gap in how Guyana’s minerals licensing regime interacts with international corporate finance — not a matter of any individual official’s judgment.

The filing is explicit that any royalty payable to the Government of Guyana will only be negotiated when a mining permit application is submitted — which can happen any time during the life of the prospecting licence. In practical terms: private, offshore claims on Kurupung’s output were locked in during 2025, ahead of Guyana’s own royalty ever being fixed. The state negotiates last, against a resource base a quarter of which — the first 40 million pounds — already carries a standing 50% claim from a single foreign investor.

Why this fits a pattern worth building on
Sharma Solomon of APNU raised the transparency question in June, calling for public disclosure and informed national debate on Kurupung. The government’s response, as far as the record shows, has been silence — consistent with the pattern this desk has already documented around GECOM commissioner appointments and the “no vacancy” stonewalling under Article 161(3)(b): oversight questions raised, met with executive non-response rather than engagement.

The uranium file adds a second, structurally different case to that thesis. It isn’t about a constitutional appointment being blocked. It’s about whether Guyana’s minerals-licensing framework has any visibility at all into beneficial ownership and related-party transactions layered on top of a prospecting licence — before a single ounce is mined, before the state’s own royalty is even negotiated. If GGMC’s mandate stops at the licence and does not extend upstream into who controls the licensee, that gap is available to be used again, on the next strategic mineral, by the next offshore platform.

Worth verifying next: GGMC’s file on beneficial ownership or change-of-control disclosure requirements attached to prospecting licences, if any exist; whether the Ministry of Natural Resources was informed of or consulted on the ROPA off-take prior to the filing becoming public; and whether GRA has visibility into transfer-pricing exposure on a future export stream that is already half spoken for by a related party.

The 592 Guardian will continue tracking the Kurupung file, including any government response to APNU’s disclosure request and further SEDAR+ filings from U92 as the drilling programme advances.

THE 592 GUARDIAN ◊ ACCOUNTABILITY JOURNALISM

Guyanese:  Study the Sequence, Get the Dutty Story

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THE 592 GUARDIAN ♦ TRUTH ♦ACCOUNTABILITY JOURNALISM

Guyanese:  Study the Sequence, Get the Dutty Story

OPINION BY: GHK LALL July 2026

I marvel at the spectacle of this country.  Institutional and political grandeur.  One that involves holding pattern, timing pattern.  Just like the nerve-wracking work of air traffic controllers.  I urge my fellow Guyanese: the sequence, study the sequence.  There’s the rich story.  It was deadly.  It’s also a beauty, with proper regard for family.

 March 2021: a man executed in the street.  Cold.  Calculated.  Within a stone throw of the official residence of Guyana’s chief governor.  A man with a young family; guests usually assembled, milling around.  A lethal shooting that outraged, a slap on Pres Ali’s face.  It happened in the too-close-for-comfort vicinity of Main Street, didn’t it?  The president didn’t seem too anxious.  Perhaps, the frenzied ecstasies of the bruising 2019-2020 elections still burned brightly.  Unready to cool amid the celebrations.

 But a killer volley near the president’s front yard had called for all-hands-on-duty and an all points bulletin.  To track the killer(s).  Despite COVID-19 roadblocks, surveillance cameras, and covert intel, law enforcement came up empty.  The charred remains of a torched vehicle.  Dead men tell no tales.  Vehicles put to death carry their secrets to the grave.  A family grieved.  Scant sympathy.  Clamored for justice.  Nothing.  A case grew cold.  The deep freeze waited.  The back of it.  A police sergeant spoke.  A person of interest spoke through a suit.  There, the matter of an execution style killing slumbered feverishly.  The blood of a man murdered crying from the freezer for justice.  From where?  By whose hand?

 March 2021 to June 2026: In this country, friendships have contributed enormously to subversions of justice.  Verifiable travesties in and of themselves.  In Guyana, warring foes may lead to the rediscovery of that elusive entity called justice.

 July 2026: It took developments over a farm for redevelopment of interest in that Main Street cold case.  What became too hot to remain in cold storage.  One man made himself into a nuisance, a bigger one.  Through disclosures about a farm with fowls and what released a foul smell.  Another man took to the airwaves to holler to the world about murder and assorted other felonious malignancies.  All part of a tsunami laden with catastrophe and tragedy.  What’s ugly and dirty.  Stick religiously to the sequence, citizens.  For immediately before, or too close after, a suspect is arrested for the Main Street murder. After five cruel and dismal years, there is this breathtaking swiftness serving as crime resolution and governance in this country.

 I think that if there was no farm exposure, there would be no talk of murder and suspected murderers.  And no arrest for the dirty, rotten crime.  It’s my conviction, the sum of reflections, persuasions, interpretations.  I  suppose Guyana’s chief legal teacher would be beside himself with joy.  At how the wheels of justice roll in this country.  The speed of their revolutions, the directions that they follow, the time and places of their terminations.  My god!  This is the law operation at its blindfolded, avoirdupois embroidered, majestic best.  For years such matters were under lockdown.  Not a whiff. Not a leaf stirring.  Then, an estate with its states of disarray, dispute, and distress are unchained.  Revelation begets revelation.  One crime alleged.  Another crime-a set of them-thrown right back into the face of the first accuser.  Time does have a way of baring its bottom. 

Secrets.  I behold tit-for-tat: take that; let’s prove who has more fat.  To absorb.  Roll with the punches.  Smell cleaner.  Cleaner? Someone has to be kidding, a confirmed jester.

 I started with the sequence.  Softly I leave my fellow citizens with the same sequence: a murder.  A shrug.  A lull.  A whistleblower.  Development dashed.  Cold case.  Cold front.  Then a farm.  Next, stops pulled out.  Last, the bottom falling out.  It sounds and feels like anancy story. 

It is Guyana’s political and institutional reality.  Facts on the ground will always defeat criminal fictions.  Be they political, social, or environmental. 

Guyanese are now living under a full-fledged crime wave.  Checkout who denied.  Now check who disclose.