Attacking the US Ambassador, American corporate ...

in 2021 they pumped in $42.2 billion into our economy.

As Mr Routledge stated, and as President, Dr. Irfaan Ali and Vice President Jagdeo have underlined, these investments are sourced from equity, not loans

An article in Kaieteur News on June 26, 2023 made it appear that the US$1.4 billion we received for the Stabroek Block in 2022 is “small change.”

Yet, readers should know that Jamaica’s total foreign exchange earnings in the same year was US $1.9 billion You all know that Jamaica has three times the population of Guyana.

As it stands, President Ali and Vice President Jagdeo always try to explain to the nation why it is important for investors to recover their investments and also make a profit This is necessary because of the distortions on oil and gas by the likes of KN’s two Lalls, and Melinda Janki

The APNU, WPA and AFC are ideologically against profit making . They believe in the very economic ideology that bankrupted this country more than once Most in the WPA would not know how to run a business if handed to them for free

The APNU would probably start sharing out a million dollars apiece to man, woman, child, and also every animal before evening earning a penny (PS – the European Union does subsidise their cows, so there may be a case for that here).

Economic nationalism has many different forms The hegemonic states cloak their economic self - interest as “ public goods ,” something that Ravi Dev touched on since 1993 in his employment of Gramsci to flesh out the challenges to political , cultural , and economic advancement in Guyana

And yes, we do have a hegemonic world economic order The fact that the President of France could muster up so many bodies to talk about reforming the global financial / developmental archi - tecture is proof of this Western-centric hegemony It should be critiqued

There are also forms of defensive economic nationalism Here, you have leaders in the Global South who are driven by what I see as “ pragmatic internationalism.” In this instance, leaders like India’s Modi; South Africa’s Ramaposha ; Barbados ’ Mia Mottley , and our own Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali, are at the leading edge of constructing new ‘regimes’ of development finance, combined with new norms of global governance

In Guyana, we are fortunate to have a transformative President in Dr. Irfaan Ali, with an experienced past president and current Vice President, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, to walk us through the complicated path before us

Finally, you have those like Melinda Janki and GHK Lall who are development deniers incubated in pathological nationalism This sort of nationalism is built around making the advocates celeb- rities Some even believe that God sent them Another one by the name of Tom Sanzillo went so far as to say Guyana does not need roads This foreigner lives in New York, in that world that Homi Bhabha once described as a world where “signs [are] taken for wonders.” This motley crew owes the Guyanese people an apology for their dottiness

For starters , I call on GHK Lall to apologise to Her Excellency Sarah Ann Lynch, Ambassador of the United States to Guyana, for characterising the Ambassador’s work in the language and imagery of sorcery

This masculinist brinkmanship shall not be tolerated

He should also apologise to Mr Routledge for his statements which are unbecoming of a columnist in a national newspaper

The nation awaits.

Yours sincerely, Dr. Randolph Persaud