admin

Ricardo Peters blasts 186 not out for Pegasus in ORSCA T20 competition Jul 11, 2024 Sports Kaieteur Sports – Former Guyana youth cricketer Ricardo Peters continued his relentless batting performance in Canada having registered three consecutive centuries. Ricardo Peters On Sunday at Great Lake venue in Brampton, the right-handed sensational opener Peters hammered 22 effortless sixes and 7 fours during his 78-ball fireworks. On the back of his historical innings, Pegasus tallied up a mammoth 241-7 from the 20-overs while Challengers replied with 118 all out off 17-overs. Peters last three innings are: 136*, 102 and 186*. On this occasion, the Essequibian got support from Keyon Sinclair who made 21 as Naresh Persaud took 3-27 from three overs. When Challengers batted, Persaud returned with the bat to make a fighting 39 and 20 each from Anil Ablacksingh and Robin Persaud. Sinclair and Adrian Sukhwa claimed 2-3 and 2-20 respectively delivering for the victorious unit. The round-robin segment is slated to continue on Sunday with a number of matches across the Greater Toronto Area. Related Similar Articles

Royals and Flames record opening wins in team 13 U-23 Basketball Jul 11, 2024 Sports Kaieteur Sports – Two more matches were played last night in the Team 13 organised Under23 basketball championship which is being played at the Amelia’s Ward Hard Court featuring home side Amelia’s Ward Jets against Block 22 Flames and Retrieve Raiders and Victory Valley Royals. However, in what was the first set of matches on Sunday after the opening night’s double header was rained out, Amelia’s Ward Jets could not sustain their third quarter momentum and folded to lose that game 42-39 as their best players were Collin Phillips, who led them with 13 points, and Kobe Tappin put in 12. Jennis Benjamin netted 11 points and Leon Benjamin with seven for the Jets. Game two was between Block 22Flames and Central Mackenzie Kings with the Flames romping home comfortable winners by a 57-30 score-line. For the winners, Jonathan Clarke had a game high 19 points, with Leron Joseph 17 and Jumane Reynolds 12 contributing to the win. Tyreese Arthur and Jemol Semple each netted eight points as Jeron Watson got five for the losers. Related Similar Articles

Nigel Hughes has Bharrat Jagdeo running for cover, sacred sick – Part I Jul 11, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column Hard Truths by GHK Lall Kaieteur News – I have never seen Bharrat Jagdeo running so scared.  Indeed, any leader that has so many clouds and shadows hanging over him would be running scared as the impact of Nigel Hughes’s leadership presence registers.  Jagdeo is vulnerable on so many fronts that scared only scratches the surface: he is transfixed by dark fears and terrified by the record that he can’t shake, no matter how hard he tries. Though intended in the kindest manner to Jagdeo, I think he is more than running sacred.  Jagdeo is running mad. GHK Lall Jagdeo has never been charged up on a development in Guyana, as this Nigel Hughes one.  Not even the PPP’s return to power, for he knew where things stood with the Yanks, and the groundswell of Guyanese support in his corner.  Not even with the PPP Congress results, which were subject to his dictates, and a foregone conclusion, anyhow.  Not even oil money and loan money flooding into Guyana, have made Jagdeo so wired up and so much like a tightly coiled jack-in-the box figure.  What his insatiable lust for power, his peculiar joys with money, his passionate rages against the PNC, couldn’t do, Hughes did.  Nothing and no one like Nigel Hughes have sent such a jolt of high voltage electricity into Bharrat Jagdeo’s sensitive nerve ends and has his face tensing, his lips trembling, and his words tumbling out in a torrent, like a koker that can’t close. When the AFC leadership results came out, Jagdeo ran out immediately to deliver his verdict: politicians making a comeback.  Recycled, he said.  This from a politician who recycled himself from elected president to self-selected president (during the Donald Ramotar reign), to self-appointed president (the Irfaan Ali regime).  Jagdeo appoints and anoints himself as the president operating from the shadows (often without a care for even that), recycling himself like a high-speed dishwasher or washing machine, and he has the spleen to speak about who is recycled.  I say it so that it is clear: given how much Jagdeo has extended and extended his political life.  He has done more than recycle himself.  He has become a whole used-tire and vulcanizing shop with himself as the sole proprietor, uber operator, and only customer. Recycled was the first indication of his early nervousness.  Ask him a soft question about oil or gas, and he becomes a spinning wheel.  Up and down, and around and around: what is more representative of what is recycled than such a reality, what has become this leader’s standard? Press him with a hard question about corruption and he runs out of air quickly.  Is that not an old bicycle tube that has to be patched up, and recycled to get another hop-and-drop yard out of it? Jagdeo was so distraught about the appearance of Nigel Hughes that he reduced his weekly tirades against KN and his tormentor, Glenn Lall, to a low trickle, all but pushed those assaults onto the backburner of his volcanic rages.  Jagdeo went on a rampage against Hughes, and it was to mask his fears.  He turns and there is Hughes -an existential threat.  He listens and there is Hughes again, haunting his existence.  What is it that Nigel Hughes represents that makes Jagdeo hang himself in full public view?  Jagdeo, the once all-conquering is now Jagdeo the blustering when the name Nigel Hughes makes the rounds.  Jagdeo the haughty is now Jagdeo the hollow when Hughes is held high by many potential Guyanese voters, including that growing section of disillusioned in his own camp. But there is another development of major significance that confirms the petrified state that Jagdeo can’t help but manifest.  Exxon’s Alistair Routledge came out into the public arena and laid down Exxon’s judgment: the Nigel Hughes-Exxon relationship does not represent a conflict of interest (look out for more on this in Part II).  Who tell he fuh she suh!  Fire and brimstone poured out of a rattled Jagdeo.  Though he should have seen that one coming, being the slick as a stick character that he is, Jagdeo immediately went on the warpath.  Exxon has it wrong.  It is the first time in memory that Jagdeo has said a negative word, took an opposing posture, against Routledge and Exxon, and it had to do with C.A. Nigel Hughes.  Clearly, the presence of Hughes in the political equation is causing Jagdeo to have fits, even expelling bodily fluids excessively, if not uncontrollably.  It is not so much what Routledge said, but on whose behalf, he said it.  All Guyanese should know by now that when Alistair Routledge speaks, he does not do that on his own.  Routledge speaks for more than CEO Darren Woods: he speaks for Exxon’s board of directors, possibly their heavyweight shareholders, to make a thorough job of this.  I am asking myself if Mr. Routledge (see how dutiful I can be) did not also speak for America. Time for the final bell on this episode.  Jagdeo is in a world of trouble with Hughes in the political milieu.  Nigel Hughes is Bharrat Jagdeo’s worst nightmare.  It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving Guyanese.  Despite my differences with Mr. Hughes, when Jagdeo is reduced to this quivering, sputtering, defensive state, he [Hughes] and I are on the same page. (The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.) Related Similar Articles

Decommissioning costs Jul 11, 2024 Editorial Kaieteur News – ExxonMobil must be recognized for its swiftness of hands with extracting decommissioning costs from Guyana for projects not yet operational.  As quick as a pickpocket, US$177M is gone from Guyana’s oil monies and to the control of ExxonMobil.  Given the sum involved for 2023 alone, to describe what the company and partners have executed with precision and skill as the work of a good pickpocket does not capture the essence of ExxonMobil’s planning, executing.  The haul of US$177M for decommissioning costs for a project still to stir into life matches the handiwork of a bank robber. When this US$177M extraction was first asked of Guyana’s chief oil spokesman, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, he was disbelieving: “I think it is not accurate.”  He quickly caught himself, though “if the project hasn’t started as yet, then my assumption is that you can’t deduct from it for decommissioning if it hasn’t been decommissioned as yet.”  There was nothing to defend or conceal there, so Jagdeo had no choice but to say what he said.  When will Jagdeo be true to his responsibilities to Guyana and callout ExxonMobil for the kind of partner that it is to this country.  One unworthy of trust, nor could be considered reliable when millions are involved, a corporate giant that is a gouger without equal. The US$177M should be held by Guyana in an escrow account and earn interest.  Even at a meager 5% interest rate, the income would be US$8.85M annually, or close to two billion Guyana dollars.  These are the issues that this nation’s chief oil policymaker should be raising hell about. However, he is not going near anything that would upset the people of this schemer of an oil partner that Guyana has.  ExxonMobil is taking out millions upon millions for decommissioning costs far into the future, reducing Guyanese profit share, and earning interest from Guyanese money taken out in advance.  ExxonMobil could be earning interest for its treasury from Guyana’s decommissioning money lent or invested in other places within its global portfolio.  Or the American oil whale could be using its Guyana’s decommissioning deductions as part of its ongoing investment billions in Guyana.  Guyana pays interest to ExxonMobil on the upfront oil investments it makes here, which is really Guyana’s money recycled to those offshore oil projects. In addition to interest earnings, there is still the cream: those handsome returns from invested capital for ExxonMobil and its consortium operating in Guyana’s oil fields.  There is a neatness to that smooth operator practice.  Considering all this, a reasonable conclusion could be that Guyana has more than a corporate partner of a special kind by its side.  Guyana is forced to deal with a corporate con artist of rare prowess. Meanwhile, Jagdeo still felt that he had to run some more interference for ExxonMobil.  The decommissioning costs taken by ExxonMobil are to cap the wells until oil production starts was his rationale.  By now, Guyana’s oil czar must know that decommissioning occurs only when an oil project is done, viz., when oil production at a specific project is exhausted.  This is what Guyana’s most knowledgeable oilman, Dr. Vincent Adams, the former local EPA head, sharply asserted in direct contradiction of what Jagdeo came up with to explain ExxonMobil’s early decommissioning deductions.  It is “asinine to say you are decommissioning a well before you start producing from it.”  Even to those who know little about oil that makes perfect sense.  Regarding why Guyana’s oil chief felt that he had to open his mouth and put his foot into it is something that we are still trying to figure out.  Is Jagdeo now so committed to ExxonMobil’s sleights of hand that he has lost sight of where his duty to Guyana begins?  Or we ask, is it that he is so deeply embedded in ExxonMobil’s bed that he just doesn’t care anymore? The beginning and end of decommissioning costs is that such should be held by the host nation.  Even the 55-member Commonwealth Group had come out very strongly in support of such action.  Guyana (Jagdeo) is not listening, waves his hand at such recommendations.  It is the green light for ExxonMobil to keep on practicing its decommissioning shenanigans. Related Similar Articles

What goes for Peter must also go for Paul Jul 11, 2024 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom Kaieteur News – During the initial weeks of the new People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPPC) administration, a very small contract was awarded to a family member of the Minister heading a particular Ministry. This incident immediately raised concerns about a potential conflict of interest. This Minister indicated that he was not involved in the process of awarding or influencing the award of the contract In another instance, a reporter from Stabroek News contacted a Minister regarding a private company with which the Minister was previously involved prior to becoming a member of the government.  The reporter wanted some answers to questions about documents that were said to have been dropped-off at the newspaper. The Stabroek News apparently wanted to determine whether the Minister continued to perform duties for the company while serving in his official capacity as a Minister. Following this inquiry, police turned up at the newspaper’s office to question the reporter about the source of the documents. The Minister denied any involvement in the police action. The second Vice President found himself at the center of controversy following an undercover investigative operation by Vice News. The operation involved an agent posing as an investor, who managed to secure a meeting at the Vice President’s residence. During the conversation, the Vice President was recorded as saying, “No, no, no. I am not getting involved in business. You will get the support. Su is my friend; he gets all the support. He deals with all the agreements. I don’t. I don’t.” Despite his denials of any improper relationship with his tenant, questions persist regarding the meaning of his remarks about Su and the nature of the support provided. This newspaper has received reports alleging that a senior political operative in the government is believed to have been purchasing land, through his father, in areas earmarked for major infrastructural development. Allegations have surfaced about the possibility of inside information having influenced these investments. Another, yet to be confirmed report is that another senior political operative is connected to a construction firm that receives contracts from the Ministry in which the senior political operative works. If so, this represents a conflict of interest. Then there is a matter that should be of concern to the government. Civil society activists have raised serious concerns regarding alleged conflicts of interest involving individuals within the Environmental Assessment Board, particularly regarding a major government project currently underway. These six cases represent significant instances where conflicts of interest or other ethical concerns have been alleged involving government officials. These concerns while denied could benefit from an impartial inquiry as to whether any improper conduct was involved. At his last Press Conference, the General Secretary of the PPP, expressed the possibility of a launching a formal inquiry into conflict-of-interest concerns surrounding the new Leader of the Alliance for Change (AFC). The General Secretary of the PPP is also the Second Vice President of Guyana and therefore it is assumed that the government may be serious about launching the inquiry. Such an inquiry would be a significant step towards maintaining the integrity of our political system. However, to ensure fairness and transparency, it is important that the suggested inquiry also extends to similar allegations of conflicts of interest within the current government. The cases highlighted above underline the necessity for a comprehensive investigation. It is also high time that a formal Code of Conduct be developed for government ministers. The previous administration under President Granger had instituted such a Code, and its reinstatement, with improvements, would greatly benefit the current administration. Such a Code should be made public and include clear mechanisms for the public to file complaints regarding breaches of conduct. There should be provisions for these complaints to be independently investigated. The public should therefore support the Vice President’s suggestion for a formal inquiry into conflict-of-interest allegations. However, any such inquiry must be comprehensive. It should encompass the six cases cited before, and any other allegations that may arise. The citizens of Guyana deserve a government that operates with the highest ethical standards. Only through thorough investigations and clear, enforceable guidelines can we achieve such an objective. As such, all Guyanese should seize this opportunity to advocate for comprehensive inquiries and the implementation of a Code of Conduct that will serve as a benchmark for ethical governance. (The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.) Related Similar Articles

Jagdeo has no shame to be talking about anyone siding with Exxon against Guyana Jul 11, 2024 Letters Dear Editor, 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 getting 52.5% of the oil revenues, when the truth is that we are only getting a measly 14.5%! Even more alarming, he has once again shone an unwelcomed spot light 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 boss man no doubt feels he has gotten all he wanted out of the VP who has become a liability by his behaviour 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. Sincerely, Dr. Vincent Adams Related Similar Articles

Some rains towards the interior and south of the capital… By Adrian Fuentes HAVANA TIMES – The passage of a tropical wave, located south of western...