Category: Eyewitness

…Bulkan Minister of Communities Ronald Bulkan’s head has to be spinning. And why not, dear reader? After all, he was just bitch-slapped in public by Georgetown Mayor Patricia Chase-Green!! This wasn’t your average bitch-slapping, where the weak, open-handed blow is just accompanied by hair-pulling and face scratching. No…this one was delivered with such ferocity and force that Bulkan was knocked right out of his buckta!! Now, in this matter, your Eyewitness has to be fair…and it does look to him like Bulkan was just asking for it! Whether Bulkan’s into…

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…in oil profits Ever since the oil bonus fiasco was uncovered, even partisans of the Government have been looking closer at the contract which was finally revealed. And what a can of worms has been revealed! It all stems from Resource Minister Raphael Trotman’s “renegotiation” of the contract the PPP had signed back in 1999. Back then, Guyana had still been on its knees — brought there by the PNC in its 28 years of destructive rule. Guyanese were hoping and praying for a turnaround in their fate. When the…

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…demands a political solution It’s great when you’re the Government, isn’t it? Look at the high-priced Bajan lawyers – Queen’s Counsels to boot! — that Basil Williams just had sworn in to help him out in the “Case of the Foisted GECOM Chair”. And yes, dear reader, you read that right – the lawyers never practised before the Guyanese Bar, and had to be “sworn in” a couple days before! These fellas don’t come cheap; they’re Bajans! Now, Lord knows the AG needs all the help he can get. Lawyers,…

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…genocide? Lincoln Lewis earned his trade union spurs in the bauxite industry, and no one can accuse him of not representing bauxite workers above and beyond the call of duty. As General Secretary of the TUC, he accused the PPP of committing “economic genocide” against the bauxite workers after 1992, even though the industry had been brought to its knees by the PNC after they nationalised it in 1970. Just before the PNC demitted office in 1992, it had split the Linden operations from the Berbice ones in preparation for…

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…Gas pains Seems there’s no end to the troubles Trotman inflicted, not just on Guyana, but on even his Cabinet colleagues — with his bumbling venality on the oil and gas contract he “renegotiated” with ExxonMobil in the Stabroek Block. Ever since the cover was blown on the peanuts he accepted as a “bonus” on the 3.5 billion bbl of oil and counting, it’s been nothing but damage control. After the giveaway on the oil, it’s becoming clearer every day that the situation on the gas is even worse! The…

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…with oil contract! Nobody could possibly confuse Raphael Trotman with Mick Jagger – or any other member of the Rolling Stones, for that matter! But even if they did – in some fevered state! – unlike the Stones, who declared, “I can’t get no satisfaction”, Trotman, looking like the proverbial Cheshire cat, declared he – and his government – were “satisfied” with the oil contract he “renegotiated” with ExxonMobil!! Of course he’s satisfied!! And why not? He not only got an all-expenses-paid vacation with his wife-to-be, but God knows what…

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…will now doom us? Now that Raphael Trotman, the Minister of Natural Resources, has released the Exxon oil contract, Guyana will just have to hold its breath as Guyanese await the “Hezekiah Effect” to kick in. This dreaded doomsday “Effect”, of course, was what Trotman assured us was the reason he hadn’t fessed up when he signed off on the bonus and other financial inducements from the mega-oil company, as it obtained the right to exploit the Stabroek field which has 3.2 billion barrels of oil – and counting. You…

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…towards the US? Well…well…well! Guyana voted against the US (and Trump) on that country’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. In case you’d imbibed too much in the Christmas party, dear reader, and missed the dust-up at the UN…here’s the scoop. Trump, being Trump, decided to jettison decades of US policy not to go along with Israel’s insistence that Jerusalem was the capital of the state of Israel, which they’d created after driving out half of the Palestinian population. Jerusalem, however, remained with a Palestinian majority, and in…

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…on Christmas and Scrooge Your Eyewitness takes his hat off to Charles Dickens, who – even though he wrote his novels in the mid-nineteenth century – still speaks to us in Guyana with immediacy. It’s not coincidental that Karl Marx was writing about the same phenomena of poor and the powerless – in somewhat less riveting prose! Every year around this time of the year, your Eyewitness returns to the Dickensian classic, “A Christmas Carol”. And no, you young whippersnappers, it’s not about belting out “Deck the halls with boughs…

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…to believe the mouthed inanities? Your Eyewitness verily believes he’s now heard it all! At his first press conference in two years, President Granger opined he didn’t “believe” placing the US$18 million “signing bonus” from Exxon into a specifically-created Bank of Guyana account – rather than the stipulated Consolidated Fund – was “illegal”. And why isn’t violating the controlling Art 216 of the Constitution not “illegal”? “I would not do something that was unlawful,” Granger said with a straight face!! Like the young George Washington, he evidently expects us to…

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