Guyana aint gat battam nah moh

Something has gone terribly wrong here, and not with me. Throughout our public service machinery, there are these baleful and defiant positions that boggle the mind, and incentivize the sharpest angers at what is placed on the table for consideration; it is of the contemptuous and insulting. By my thinking, it is how the stewards entrusted with our welfare, think of, participate in, and react to charges of, costly wrongdoing while in office. I share some familiar high-profile instances from the dark side of real-life Guyana that repulse and unleash the worst misgivings.

It may involve the once secret personal award to senior public officers of thousands of acres of prime state lands, while involving the questionable and suspected corrupt at work. Almost unfailingly, the nation gets what sounds like this: nothing wrong was done. The rules were followed. Standing practices obeyed in complete cooperation. The claims are of innocence and cleanliness in what does not add up, is not deserving of a clean bill of health. On the heels of thousands of acres of land, there came news of hundreds of thousands of dollars (American) for what was initially denied in some peculiar business partnership on the East Bank and political people benefiting.

Then, as recently exposed, expensive jewellery took centre stage; first for almost a million for a senior executive, then just over a half million for a former minister. The rebuttals followed the same time-honoured Guyanese tradition: clean hands only, no basis for, no truth to, allegations that upend. That is, until the roof fell in, and the walls of specious defenses crumbled. Somebody did wrong; somebody did not confess; all credibility was lost irretrievably. Not unexpectedly, a short time before, that same kind of ‘Nancy’ story surfaced with two of Guyana’s oil blocks potentially representing billions of barrels of oil that were mysteriously handled, through arrangements in deep darkness. The defense for that rich one was even richer: no laws were broken; no corruption was involved. And that assertion came from a former president.

Over and over, it is the same broken record played in this country, in revelations of costly depredations by its trusted, even beloved, elected and selected officials; there is that broad, deep strain of denial placed before a public that mostly doesn’t know better, doesn’t care at all.

These absurdities stand as the byproducts of bizarre political and bureaucratic endeavours that rest in open caskets and in state; and verbal perfumed bouquets do not remove the stench. This is the piteous state that Guyana is reduced to, that speaks volumes. It is the predominant norm in this society, where leaders invent a special cure to suit every atrocious situation. It explains why Guyana is so sick, despite being so rich. It begins with those we put in charge; it continues with those many citizens who could care less. As someone said: Guyana aint gat battam nah moh.

Yours faithfully,

GHK Lall