BHARRAT Jagdeo, since May 2015, has long been recognised to have a problem accepting the reality that he is no longer President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana and as a result, he no longer has the residual power of that executive office.

It is accepted that as leader of the parliamentary opposition, his is an important constitutional mandate–offering constructive criticism on matters pertaining to the common good of the republic. Of course, in this, his current office as with every other leader of the opposition is traditionally always seen as an alternative to the government.

However, in portraying himself as such, he has been grossly dishonest in ways that are unparalleled with every other past leader of the opposition in this country. Since it is well documented as to the many numerous, famous examples of this type of political conduct, they will not be repeated except to say that he has been insulting the citizens of this land, including his very own constituents.

This is a leader whose party and personal reign oversaw a criminal state, during which every conceivable political-socio-economic crime took place in this country. So now, he desperately tries to re-invent himself, using the old reverse psychology trick.

His known mindset, whenever confronted by questions concerning very serious incidents/matters relevant to his party’s government tenure in office, is either to become angry and sullen, or attempt to trivialise. Here is a politician who has a track record for refusing to take responsibility for issues that occurred during his stewardship, while attempting to shift the blame.

It is a given that every political leader, inclusive of Jagdeo as a former head of state, is accountable for his past/present stewardship. This means for every policy decision taken and for every relevant incident that pertains to governance that occurred during the particular watch.

We see this as not the understanding of Jagdeo, a former head of state/government. His outrageous claims and defence as to his former administration’s responsibility for the demise of GuySuCo, and what it has subsequently caused to the lives of the thousands of sugar workers, illustrates a dishonesty that has not in any way contributed to government’s efforts at resuscitating a once national key economic earner. As usual, he resorted to the dangerous ethnic game, his favourite trump card, exploiting fears and insecurity among the workers.

But this is Jagdeo, who has become better-known to the nation in his current constitutional capacity; as again, he recently seeks to evade media questions as to sums of money that oil companies had paid to the state for oil-exploration activities, prior to 2015 in Kaieteur News dated June 20, 2018, captioned, “Jagdeo skirts questions on money Guyana collected during PPP/C tenure”.

It is instructive that the public is now being informed that such sums as paid from 1999 to 2015, from a reported five companies, inclusive of EXXON, were for the building of capacity in the local oil and gas sector, for equipping Guyanese with the relevant skills.

Now, this is the same Jagdeo who is on record as criticising the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), for not possessing the accounting skills and capacity to track and audit Exxon Mobil’s expenditure relating to their investment in oil and gas activities in Guyana.

This latest revelation further reveals the selfishness and anti-national outlook of this politician, who definitely had not been forward-looking, and who did not care about his country. After all, 16 years are a very lengthy period to have been able to develop a corps of Guyanese endowed with some of the necessary skills relevant to an emerging oil industry, as is now imminent.

It has to be emphasised that laying the groundwork for an oil and gas industry is a gargantuan effort that challenges any government in its commencement phase, and even long after extraction has commenced. It is a national endeavour of untold proportions, for the amount of mental energies required in putting together legislation and highly skilled persons that will guide its functions and operations, in addition to the many state agencies for managing such a massive socio-economic game-changer.

Every available talent becomes necessary as inputs for building capacity. Thus, without fear of contradiction, such trained personnel as those now-revealed funds would have facilitated, would have been a more than good advance in government’s current efforts to prepare for first-oil.

How can Jagdeo still refer to the $18MU.S. signing bonus, as among his “bigger concerns’’ when this government has already accounted for such sum? In typical Jagdeo evasive style, he deprecates the sums paid to his former administration, inferring that they are small sums in comparison. Again, Jagdeo should be reminded that accountability is about every sum, of any amount, that is paid into the state’s coffers, and that includes the sums paid to the PPP/C under his stewardship, by those oil and gas companies as reported.