Guyanese Online

GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – Feb 06, 2022 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

Encouraging Events, Disturbing Developments…  By GHK Lall

It is all negative this week, the things that disturb. Foreigners in the growing oil sector are playing games with Guyanese. They are treating us like slaves and indentured servants, with practices that hark back to slavery days and colonial times. When I read of how Guyanese workers are being treated, rage and disgust flares. It is as if nothing has changed, after all the heartfelt promises, the warm smiles, and warmer handshakes, and this being the era of political correctness, where every word and posture is measured and remeasured to ensure there are no missteps.

GUYANESE WORKERS MISTREATED                 

Guyanese workers, mainly from the semi- and unskilled levels, have to lineup patiently and wait quietly, while their foreign masters eat first. Then they have to be content with whatever is left (leff, leff in Guyanese lingo). This should not be happening, but it is and repeatedly in different places, where foreigners are in charge. This is neither the ole American slaveholding South nor pre-Mandela South Africa. It is the 21st century and Guyana, and we have the oil. I say let’s kick their sorry asses all the way back to where these racist mothers came from. Just get them out of here. They sicken me with their double standards and hypocrisy. They ill-treat our leaders, then they degrade our workers toiling for an honest dollar. Even their overtime hours the foreigners cheat them out of; so sleazy are these low sons of you know what.

I am disturbed that our leaders have no sense of outrage, no pride, when these things happen with Chinese, Russians, Indians, and American companies exploiting our riches here, and spitting on our people. Now, they are going to make them good on overtime due, but are silent otherwise. We have to select one company and send it packing, to show we mean business. That would encourage enormously.

DRAINAGE PUMPS

Fire pumps for drainage works must take the cake for the bizarre and incredible. Compliments of the APNU+AFC, $720M was wasted in this fashion (KN February 2). There is a saying: lend a man an asset, like a car or tool, and be ready for what is received on return. This is precisely what occurred here and to the tune of a whopping $720M squandered. This agitates and disturbs no end. I mean there are errors and failures, then there are errors and failures, and this one is sheer lunacy. Who was responsible for this? Who didn’t catch this until much later? Why not? Again, I ask: why are the people responsible for such things not dragged around the streets by whipped horses? We have some sick and truly stupid people in this country.

INDIAN FIRMS IN GUYANA

First, it was the Chinese, now it is the Indians. They come with their money to lend their expertise in building, and their readiness to deliver quality products for Guyanese. There is one catch. The Chinese did it earlier. Now the subcontinent Indians did them one better. They walked with their own people to monopolise the bidding for the construction of the Ogle-Eccles Road. To emphasise, only their firms put in bids, and the one that won did so despite bidding higher than the engineer’s estimate. I must inquire quietly whether this was a part of the wheeling and dealing now prevalent in today’s Guyana. That is, a full-service product is offered by the Indians, inclusive of loans, project plans and blueprints, and, to close the deal, the firm which must secure the road building contract.

I get the disturbing impression that it is that or no deal. The engineer’s estimate is exceeded, a now frequent occurrence, with Guyanese taxpayers responsible for repaying the loan. It is not chickenfeed money, because the engineer’s estimate was almost US$48.7M, while all three of the Indian companies bidding were over the US$106M mark. That is more than double the local engineer’s estimate.

What could be going on here that our own engineer’s estimate is so way off? None can be that incompetent, that off the mark, which by itself disturbs tremendously. Was this a case of the fix being in on the Indian side, with Guyana’s Government going along?

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Kaieteur News)