Yours truly, the presumption is that the Granger administration is looking towards the 2020 general elections with much financial panic because just about every avenue of financial cash flows is drying up. The economy remains stagnant. This means that the business men whom the politicians usually rely upon will have less to give. The folks in the Diaspora are publically annoyed with the performance on the coalition government. And while all these realities are steering this government in their faces, the gods of honestly seem to be angrily against them. Because every time they try siphoning some monies through some illegal act, they are being caught with their hands in the financial cookie jar.
They tried with the Sussex Street bond and they got caught. They gained initial embarrassment and contrition, and promised to never do it again. They have since rescinded that crooked contract. Of course, there was the famous ‘BiShan Lin-gate’ scandal. It was noted that the reason for the trip was to trace and secure the US$500 million that is owed to the peoples of Guyana. Be it known that that trip is long over, two years have passed, and the monies are still unaccounted for.
The Guyanese people were appraised by the media, to several other shenanigans and corrupt acts, since this government came into power a few years ago.
Now we have the ‘ExxonMobil-gate’. The government was caught hiding the very first monies that Guyana obtained from our oil. That cannot abode well for the future of oil in Guyana. Ol’ people does say – Wha gon’ bad a morning, can’t come good ah evening. It is no doubt that the government was nefarious in their act to keep that money secret from the Guyanese people. No matter how one spins that behavior, it remains a mystery as to why the Granger administration would hide over $4 billion from the Guyanese people. Even the auditors that the administration hired were not aware of that ExxonMobil money.
Let’s take their argument that they wanted to pay lawyers to defend Guyana against Venezuela’s claim to our territory. Why not publically declare the monies but secretly pay the lawyers? Or at least call in the opposition leader and tell him of the urgency (there is really no urgency), of the need to keep the funds a secret?
The truth, as the United Republican Party (URP) sees it, is that the Granger administration was planning to use that money as an investment in their elections war chess. They are broke and nervous. They have lost the support of many of their larger donors. They have lost the sparkle of many of their local, loyal, foot soldiers and they are hemorrhaging politically, daily. I just had a conversation of one of the largest Afro-Guyanese congregation leaders and he told me that he has lost confidence in this administration. No doubt that displeasure will be translated to that Spiritual Leader’s followers.
Meanwhile, the PPP has all the monies they collected – legally and illegally – while they were in office. They still have the support of the biggest and most connected of Guyana’s business men and women – in and out of Guyana. The folks in the diaspora are slowly returning to their fold. And the PPP has been able to muster a resurgence in their traditional support base. The APNU/AFC coalition is in a financial panic mood as they look towards 2020. Desperate people do desperate things, so expect more attempts at crookedness in the next few months.