I am witnessing with laughter mixed with concern, the uncontrolled tirade, panic, fearfulness, intimidation, and emotional distress exhibited by our VP Jagdeo from the minute that eminent Attorney Nigel Hughes was elected to serve as the AFC Leader. This Nigel syndrome is causing nightmares robbing this man of his much-needed sleep and driving him wild and crazy, hunting down every media house to make a spectacle of his petulance.
It would be absurd for me to even suggest holding brief for arguably Guyana’s most heralded Attorney in Mr. Hughes already doing very well explaining himself to the people of Guyana, who, in a democracy, are the ones to judge him with their votes, and not Jagdeo! But let’s not forget that Jagdeo’s Kremlin indoctrinated estrangement to democratic principles and governance cannot be surprising. His fake re-birth to removal of Marxist-Leninist ideology from his PPP’s constitution, won’t fool the United States or any others of the western world. Don’t think they forgot his party’s expulsion of former Minister and AFC Leader, Khemraj Ramjattan, for his strong advocacy to remove this ideology.
While at it, why didn’t he apologize and withdraw the rude and unseemly verbal anti-American vitriol directed at the United States by his then Acting Foreign Affairs Minister, Priya Manickchand, when she had to be loudly booed off the stage by the other nations’ Ambassadors, right in the US Ambassador’s residence, and to booth, at the celebration of America’s Independence Anniversary – what an embarrassment! that should have disqualified anyone from being a Minister. Mr. Jagdeo, in the same vein of dropping your Marxist-Leninist ideology, we await your apology and withdrawal of the Manickchand’s anti-American outrage.
Jagdeo’s churlishness aside, this man’s boldness to accuse anyone of taking the side of Exxon against Guyana’s interest is mind-bogglingly shameless. He flourishes upon people not remembering his deeds because they are so many and so frequent that they bury each other from the news; so, let me remind them.
Isn’t this the same Jagdeo led Government which is joined at the hip with Exxon fighting for dear life against Guyana’s national interest in appealing the overwhelming ruling of Judge Kissoon for unlimited parent company guarantee to protect our people, put in place by the Coalition! Parent company Exxon doesn’t sign any of the documents that are instead signed by its child company EMGL which carries the liabilities, but has no assets to cover a major oil spill, the likes of the BP Macondo spill costing $145 Billion USD; thus, would bankrupt Guyana and the Caribbean countries.
Isn’t this the same Jagdeo led Government which is joined at the hip with Exxon to go against Guyana’s interest when it permanently damages our environment in removing the Coalition’s prohibition on gas flaring at the oil ships! The paltry fee for unlimited flaring is miniscule to the revenues made from not flaring, thus, an incentive to flare. This misdoing violates the sanctity of Environmental Impact Assessment and inconsistent with the US international standards which call for the gas to be re-injected. The Flared gas contains over 200 contaminants causing health effects, enhances climate change, and generates acid rain that falls back down, damaging our oceans, rivers, streams, soils, farms, houses, and automobiles, etc.
Isn’t this the same Jagdeo led Government which is joined at the hip with Exxon to go against Guyana’s interest by dumping billions of barrels of very hot, radioactive, toxic, and very oily produced water into the ocean, instead of re-injecting it in accordance with international standards and following the requirement of the Coalition! The resulting damages to the ocean, fishing, beaches and tourism industry in the Caribbean are self-explanatory.
Isn’t this the same Jagdeo led Government joined at the hip with Exxon to fight against Guyana’s interest by tripling the Coalition’s required capping stack deployment time to cap a well blowout from 3 to 9 days, thus allowing a potential extra six days of oil gushing into the sea!
Isn’t this the same Jagdeo who has cowardly allowed Exxon propagandistic billboards to stand, though he openly agreed with yours truly that they are “misleading” to falsely claim that we are 52.5% of the oil revenues, when the truth is that we are only getting a measly 14.5%!
Even more alarming, he has evvel again shone an unwelcome spotlight on his own EPA man, Mr. Parsram, and thrown him under the bus, by denigrating the Liza 1 environmental permit describing it as the worst permit signed by yours truly, when in fact, it was signed by Parsram 18 months before I even arrived at EPA. Concernedly, he was corrected several times about this falsity, including the Kaieteur News publishing of the permit page with Parsram’s signature. Now we see why he has to keep reminding people at his press conferences that he is not senile. That notwithstanding, shouldn’t he be questioning his own judgement for re-hiring Mr. Parsram to head the EPA, after knowing that he signed what he decries as the “worst permit ever? Or, is he admitting what we all already know, that servility to him, trumps competency.
Oh No! Some very bad breaking news – when it rains, it pours! Papa Routledge to whom the VP has been devoutly loyal against Guyana’s best interest, has cruelly ditched and scolded him that there is no conflict. His bossman no doubt feels he has gotten all he wanted out of the VP who has become a liability by his behavior and will be booted out of office. If you think Mr. Hughes has made him wild and crazy, buckle up for the days ahead from this double whammy! I ask the country to join in praying for our VP and hope he is being carefully monitored by his doctor.
We all know how he is now fuming and looking for a way to get back at kingpin Routledge, so, here are my sage advice, not only to retaliate, but also, to regain some sort of credibility in the eyes of his people. Show repentance to the Guyanese people by (1) dis-enjoining his Government from Exxon in their appeal against Judge Kissoon’s ruling; (2) revoke the EPA permits and reinstate with the Coalition’s requirements for prohibition of flaring and dumping of produced water in the ocean; (3) revoke the permits and reinstate with the Coalition’s requirement for the 3-day deployment of the capping stack instead of 9 days; (4) direct Exxon to tear down those disinformation billboards; and (5) apologize to the US Government for Manickchand’s embarrassingly repugnant anti-American diatribe.
One last request – Mr. Jagdeo, please put my letter on top of your Thursday pile and read.
Dr. Vincent Adams