Never the day canoe bore punt, would the ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP) hang its dutty linens in public. And the PPP has plenty dutty linens. Equally famed for corruption, cleptocracy, and nepotism, no matter how putrid, rancid, and rancorous the disagreements were at home, they rarely filtered into the public domain.
Of course, anything is bound to happen when you have two coarse jagabats like Irfaan and Jagdeo at the helm. Former President Donald Ramotar has been eking out a quiet existence, save for the occasional comment or two. He went out to pasture the way Jagdeo should have. I remember one of Donald’s comment on the poor leadership at GUYSUCO, which has kept the sugar industry in the doldrums since the PPP was installed into political paramountcy on August 2, 2020. Of course, he was right. The PPP know it but as is its policy, when all else fails, deny, deny, deny.
More recently, Ramotar waded into the cesspool of party politics and we got a rare peek behind the PPP opaque drapery. Two of the things he said were noteworthy. He stated that he would have renegotiated the Exxon Mobil Oil Contract with Guyana. And on the rogue department in the Ministry of Natural Resources that negotiated US$214 million of disputed spending down to US$3 million, he said heads need to roll. Well, who Donald to say that! Irfaan run out for his head.
“Everybody want the front page now. Some of them had plenty years to change it, but they want the front page now,” came Irfaan’s lash. “The easiest thing to get the front page and say, oh, I support changing the contract,” President Irfaan Ali bellowed in One Guyana anger, at a recent event. “For God heaven’s sake, I wish if it was a better contract. All of us wish that,” the Head of State said, addressing Ramotar’s comment on renegotiating the Exxon contract.
And another broadside as Ali told his audience, “We have been given a bad hand. We have to correct it now. We have to ensure the future hands are not as that bad. And we’re in a better position. You know, everybody’s a specialist now. Whether you’re a former president, you’re a president, you’re whoever engineer, you’re owner of Beharry and the Beharry Group. Everybody’s specialized now.”
“I don’t spend my time on negative energy, but it’s tiring to listen to some of these guys. What? You want us to change a contract? You have an existing contract. You think that is how it happens? That is how the world operates? That you can just walk in one day and decide; I had this contract with you. I’m changing it now. One lawsuit. This is not play thing,” HE said.
It has been a stunning about face for a political organization for which the doctrine of renegotiating the Exxon contract Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) of 2016 was one of the central pillars of the election campaign of the PPP. Never mind treatment of a former President from its ranks. It is brazen, barefaced. It is downright hypocritical. If ever there was a picture of ‘sanctimonious gangster’ it was Ali on that stage attempting to berate a former President, and one from is own party.
Since assuming office the PPP has abandoned that idea of renegotiation as an idea ho time has not yet come, like other promises like a free ‘UG’. The PPP had discarded that doctrine like other things the no longer have any uses for, case in point, Donald Ramotar.
But Donald has seen this movie before. Former President Janet Jagan’s public attempt to intervene on Stabroek News’ behalf after government ads were withdrawn from the paper, were met with a terse public rebuke from then President Bharrat Jagdeo. Donald Ramotar knows, in this puppet show, who is pulling Ali’s strings. He knows the power behind the curtains and the power behind the throne.
