GHK Lall has a daily attack column in the Kaieteur News. He dedicates every line to deriding every action of President Ali and his government. Given the results of the last elections and the robust performance of Dr Ali, Lall does not see a strong government and a weak opposition. He sees a one-party state committing every atrocity under the sun. He even sees the number of cloudy days as a suspicious government undertaking. While Lall is out there casting aspersions, he is yet to properly defend potent allegations of links to, and actions taken to facilitate gold-smuggling by the embattled Mohameds, while he (Lall) was the head of the Gold Board.
Further, GHK Lall has not uttered a word to clarify accusations of not only embellishing his accomplishments, but outrightly concocting an academic and professional profile that does not exist in the real world, an unflinching, audacious liar in full ‘superfluousity.’ It would therefore not be difficult to associate Lall with terms such as diddle, chicanery and pseudo-intellectual flimflam.
Phoney moonlighters such as GHK Lall were part of the bad omen that was unleashed on this nation when President Granger rubbed the gerontological genie lamp. As if immersed in the opening scene of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” we saw the resurrection of some pale, wishy-washy, old, vapid, tired and retired gully creepers, Lall being Exhibit A and the poster-boy.
Because of their deeply flawed middle-class instincts, the leadership of the AFC was happy to facilitate the sudden apparition of these political discarnates. Raphael Trotman, then leader of the AFC and Minister of Natural Resources, was willing to overlook, and possibly stifle an army of young, talented and qualified people with solid contributions to his party’s development, in favour of GHK Lall to head the Gold Board.
I often clashed with the cabalist inner temple of the AFC leadership over their inability to reckon “political dividend.” When making an administrative appointment, leaders must also calculate the political dividends the governing party is likely to receive from each appointee over time. People, the ilk of Lall had no political capital from which to extract a dividend that could have helped to win the 2020 or any subsequent elections.
GHK Lall was looking for his place in the sun. Apart from artifice, he brought neither new ideas, financial support nor political suasion. He was simply a barren, opportunistic gatherer who benefitted from the gerontological predilection and approbation of the APNU+AFC, and for some time, was able to fool the gullible. The simple question is, what has Lall contributed politically or administratively to the Gold Board that any of the displaced younger and more vibrant politically immersed people could not have? There is enough on the public record directly from Lall that can be termed as barefaced lies that exposes the totality of his outpourings snugly under the classification, “incredible.”
It was easy for Trotman and the AFC to find Lall attractive, because they didn’t bother themselves with inculcating new leaders, exposing new people to administrative leadership or showed any interest in the development or growth of anyone outside the tight cabal. So that, any mature person who peddles snake-oiled credentials, purveys political Ponzi schemes coupled with feigned middle-class membership, AFC will plunge head first with.
I challenge either Nigel Hughes, Cathy Hughes, Raphael Trotman, David Patterson or Khemraj Ramjattan to offer the name of just one person (young or otherwise) that they, either individually or together mentored or exposed to leadership that eventually gained any form of national recognition, or that produced any form of political dividend which the AFC can cash in on today.
It is not surprising that the AFC is now relegated to a barren social club of jaded, middle-class old guardsmen with no young leaders of any stripe to move the party forward, dividends of their political investment.
Lall denied the existence of a document containing the names of the Mohameds in relation to suspected gold- smuggling during his tenure on the Gold Board. Within hours he ‘get skin up’ by Raphael Trotman. Trotman admitted that as minister, he was aware of a dossier from the US Government, shared with the Gold Board, that contained the names of the Mohameds.
Lall is still faced with a myriad of conspiracy theories, for which no plausible body of information is available to extricate him from allegations that, at the very least, he turned a blind eye to prolific levels of gold trans-shipment and smuggling, which occurred under his tenure. I guess Lall thinks that by washing his mouth daily on every conceivable government policy, we will somehow forget his record of debasement. Lall has no moral rectitude to lecture anyone on the virtues of governance. Shakespeare has a question concerning “the state of Denmark” and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson might ask, “can you smell what Lall is cooking?” In comes Volda Lawrence with an apt answer, “sink a fish.”
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.