Your Eyewitness is very disappointed – but not really surprised – about the continuous harping on “race” to explain anything and everything perceived negatively happening in Guyana by PNC and their camp- follower types. In fact, if these accounts are to be believed, race ain’t no variable no longer in our dear mudland, but a constant! Fella gets robbed as he staggers home from the rum shop. Race! Cocaine discovered in saltfish? Race! Never mind about cocaine in the vagina!!
And we arrive at their claims about a “creeping apartheid state” after Granger grudgingly allowed the PPP to take office – five months after they were voted in!! “Race”! Your Eyewitness knows the PNC doesn’t have much experience with the change of governments in Guyana and the ensuing transitions!! After all, under Burnham and Hoyte, they rigged their way into power for almost three decades – until finally the latter was forced to allow “free and fair” elections.
But we saw, at that point, the appearance of race as the new explanatory variable for everything political and sociological. Even before the election was called, one ex-strongman started insisting that the “white man” Jimmy Carter was bent on ousting the PNC. Why? Well, duh – race! Carter was just another “Redneck” from the US Deep South who had it in for Blacks! And as the PPP attempted to govern and was forced to get rid of some of the “square pegs in round holes” accumulated over the previous 28 years, there came the cries of “ethnic cleansing” in THAT incarnation!! Race! And never mind that Hoyte had fired more (African) Public Servants in his five years, at the behest of the IMF than the PPP would do over the course of the 23 years they’d govern Guyana! But not Race!
But when they got in for five years after 2015 and filled Bertrand Collins Public Service College with NINE-TWO PERCENT African Guyanese – that WASN’T race!! Or when Granger fired 7000 mostly Indian Guyanese sugar workers. Or the two Indian top brass of the Police Force. Or when 16 out of 17 Permanent Secretaries were also African Guyanese!! Or the $2.6 BILLION RURAL Agricultural Infrastructural Development (RAID) programme was implemented ONLY in African villages!!
But back to the “creeping apartheid state”. Now, if apartheid is meant for the different racial groups separately, how come the PNC is screaming bloody murder that the PPP is “invading” African Guyanese communities to – gasp!!!! – give away house lots and jobs and other goodies??!!
Yeah really: what’s race got to do with it?
…but ignoring facts
Some are taking Trotman’s book on his role in the Exxon Contract as if it came carved in stone from behind a burning bush! But how come he ignored Global Witness’s “signed away” claims??
For instance, on June 23, 2016, he’d emailed a govt O&G consultant saying Exxon had asked for an extension of some drilling leases that were set to expire. He said then he saw it as an opportunity to revise some of the terms of the Frontier 1999 agreement – which split profit oil 50-50 with a ONE-PERCENT royalty for the country!! The consultant suggested allowing the contract to expire – then threaten to host a bidding process and a 10% royalty!!
Another adviser suggested a 15% royalty and that he hire 10 or 20 experts on the renegotiation, not just the one he had. But unknown to either adviser, Trotman signed the new deal with Exxon four days later, on June 27, 2016. He kept the 50-50 “frontier” 1999 profit sharing – after Exxon took 75% for its expenses!! There was the piddling secret signing bonus of US$18 million and another 1% more royalty!
He was told to sign?? Like Eichman was TOLD to gas 6 million Jews??
…on the past
If you obsess over anything, it’s almost impossible to move beyond it and seize other opportunities that may present themselves. Take the PNC’s obsession with the “poverty” in their constituency. Shouldn’t they be focusing on wealth??
