Silence and scandal – Kaieteur News

(Kaieteur News) – Silence, in moments of national crisis, is never neutral, it is a statement and today, that statement from the highest offices of government is deafening. As the Wales Gas-to-Energy project unravels into what can only be described as a financial and governance debacle, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo—the administration’s self-styled oil czar has gone conspicuously quiet.

No press conferences. No firm explanations. Only rumours that he has slipped out of the jurisdiction.

President Irfaan Ali, too, appears to have retreated behind a wall of silence. For a government that once prided itself on accessibility and constant engagement with the media, this sudden disappearance raises troubling questions. When the stakes are highest, when taxpayers face mounting losses, when confidence in public institutions hangs in the balance, why are the nation’s leaders nowhere to be found?

The Gas-to-Energy project, touted as the cornerstone of Guyana’s energy transformation, is now stained by a US$102M loss arising from a dispute with the Lindsayca-CH4 consortium. At the heart of that loss lies a deeply disturbing revelation: a glaring conflict of interest involving attorney Devindra Kissoon. Here is a man who, by all available accounts, stood on both sides of the negotiating table, advising the State while simultaneously representing the contractor that would later take that same State to arbitration and win.

This is a fundamental collapse of governance safeguards. It is the kind of arrangement that should never have been permitted, far less facilitated. Yet, somehow, it was not only allowed, it was embedded into the very fabric of the project’s contractual architecture. The same legal mind reportedly helped shape the dispute resolution clauses that would later be used against Guyana, costing the nation over US$100M.

Who approved this? Who signed off? Who ensured that no independent oversight flagged what now appears to be an obvious and dangerous conflict?

The troubling reality is that this project has, from its inception, been shrouded in secrecy. The full contract remains hidden from the Guyanese people. Key decisions have been made behind closed doors. Critical details have been drip-fed to the public only after problems emerge—never before. This culture of concealment has now borne bitter fruit.

And still, there is no accountability. No senior official has stepped forward to accept responsibility. No comprehensive explanation has been offered. Instead, there is silence, punctuated only by speculation and growing public distrust.

Leadership requires presence. It requires transparency. It requires the courage to face difficult questions head-on.

Yet, what Guyanese are witnessing is the opposite. The absence of Vice President Jagdeo from the public arena, combined with the reticence of President Ali, sends a deeply troubling signal: that accountability can be deferred, that scrutiny can be avoided, that the public can simply be left to wonder.

But the Guyanese people are not passive observers. They are the financiers of this project. It is their resources, drawn from the nation’s oil wealth that are being committed, and now, squandered. They have a right to know how a flagship initiative descended into legal defeat and financial loss. They have a right to understand how a conflict of interest of this magnitude was allowed to flourish.

Most importantly, they have a right to demand that those responsible are held accountable.

The PPP government cannot continue to hide behind silence. It cannot hope that this controversy will simply fade away. The questions are too serious, the implications too profound. Trust in public institutions is at stake. The credibility of the country’s management of its oil wealth is on the line.

Where in the world is Jagdeo? Why has the government gone quiet at the very moment it should be speaking the loudest? And how did Guyana end up losing over US$100M on a project that was supposed to secure its energy future?

These questions will not disappear. And until they are answered fully, transparently, and truthfully, this Gas-to-Energy project will stand not as a symbol of progress, but as a stark warning of what happens when secrecy, conflict, and silence replace accountability.