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Mueller disgraced the office of Independent Counsel DEAR EDITOR, I believe that Independent Counsel Robert Mueller, by those words against his name, has condemned himself. In so doing, he has dragged the always controversial, always vulnerable, office of Independent Counsel into the graveyard of irrelevancy and immateriality. His failure to rise to what the occasion demanded has besmirched the efforts and records of illustrious and enlightened predecessors in that thankless post. For purposes of context and convenience, I start with the negative. I do so through a visit to another stalwart, a now infamous one, from the Independent Counsel brotherhood: Kenneth Starr. Mr. Starr discarded dignity and some integrity to pursue a particular agenda of his own, and while spurred on by likeminded diehard conservatives. The word was: Get Clinton. Get this offensive bone out of the throat and out of sight. Get him out of there by any means. Mr. Starr complied by demonstrating the imprudent and arguably vindictive, through degrading his investigation into a fundamentalist drive to unseat Bill Clinton by any low means. Ken Starr sullied himself when he steered pivotal aspects of the office and objectives of the Independent Counsel to enter into the blatantly partisan. How different was Mr. Starr’s probe and actions when compared to those of Mr. Mueller: one the very definition of rancorous evangelical distaste and the political divisiveness; and the other, the epitome of an uncomprehending and still unexplained misidentification of what was the purpose of his investigation. In terms of the latter, it was as if Mr. Mueller had already made up his mind to think nothing and write nothing. Nothing of consequence. In some sense, I detect more than hesitancy; I recognize fear, and the careful
withdrawal that is a part of such faintness and sweating. How different are the records - poles apart as to approaches and energies - of Messrs. Starr and Mueller when matched against the still reverberating resonance of Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Independent Counsel Archibald Cox of Richard Nixon and Watergate era notoriety. Together they stand as an incomparable first example of what should prevail as to necessary standards and values. It is those ideals which must be brought to the arena of presidential inquiry and then delivered in spades. U n e q u i v o c a l l y. Unflinchingly. In the instance of Richardson and Cox, the former was willing to stand in integrity and all those other indefinable somethings before his president, and both were ready to fall, willingly or unwillingly, on their swords, and be carried out on their shields with reputation intact. They were. They don’t make men of that rare calibre and spellbinding honour anymore. And that is anywhere, including Guyana; particularly Guyana. But the Nixonian travails served other functions for wily political partisans on both sides of the American divide. Identified and filed away were the precedents of administrative sloppiness and the price of truth. Hard lessons were learned and truth went by the wind, as is evidenced in the second example that accrues to the further discredit of Mr. Mueller. It is that of Attorney General Edwin Meese and Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh of Ronald Reagan and those still memorable Iran Contra hearings. That was the problem that Independent Counsel Walsh faced during his investigation of White House wrongdoing through circumventing the Boland Amendment and possible obstruction of justice by presidential agents: truth and principle vanished
at the highest levels. The lessons learned from Nixon resulted in all the president’s men - McFarlane, Poindexter, Weinberger, and North - not remembering anything, shredding everything, and generally knowing nothing. All the president’s men exhibited the unflagging spirit of all hands being on deck with one deception after another. Endlessly. No truth. No qualms. Thus, the mistakes, and the lessons, of Nixon and his people were learned. Walsh was stonewalled all the way into innocuousness. And yet he persisted and followed where the evidence led. In fairness, Mr. Mueller’s path had its share of obstacles, but he turned out to be his own biggest one. Presidential legacies suffer when wrongdoing is bypassed or diluted, and Independent Counsel fail. Sacred public trusts are toyed with and betrayed; the public loses. Clinton: intellectually towering proved himself to be morally crumbling; dissembling and devious, too. Lacking in the genius of truth and a special tutelary spirit. Starr tried everything to nail him; matters lacked the clinical character of objectivity. Mr. Starr hurt the calling of that particular office back then. Reagan is recalled as a doddering pathetic figure; his men wrapped themselves in the American flag and rode the wave by being disingenuous. Walsh stayed at great cost and managed with what he was allowed to access. Today, a sitting president and his cast reveal themselves to be as artistic as Houdini where facts and standards are concerned. Mr. Mueller pretends at limitations, by limiting himself. He tied his own hands by feebly looking the other way, when he could not make a notso-hard call, even if his life were to depend on it. The office of Independent Counsel stands as a testimony to meaningless. Sincerely, GHK Lall
Is Exxon’s Hammerhead the next... From page 5 billion barrels calculation. Therefore, should its appraisal confirm the presence of more oil, the total recoverable resources for the Stabroek
Tuesday April 23, 2019
Kaieteur News
Block may not make an eyecatching spike. Nevertheless, it is likely to be singled out as a monster find. Finally, the lonely Ranger1 well (the sixth oil find,
located much further north) seems to be getting on-andoff treatment, getting pushed around the batting order. O f n o t e , h o w e v e r, Exxon’s public statements s u g g e s t t h a t R a n g e r ’s estimated resources are not included in the 5.5 billion barrel total for the Stabroek Block. Yours faithfully, Sherwood Lowe
It seems that we have to be wary of our countrymen in and out of Guyana DEAR EDITOR, Having read the article in SN –‘Agro processors want more robust lobby for access to regional markets, local outlets’ I looked at the accompanying picture of the displayed products and noticed some improvements in bottling and packaging. I noticed that there were no recycled rum bottles used to bottle some products. More needs to be done in this area to ‘sell’ our products in foreign countries. Also for some packaged products you need the appropriate plastics. I now reside in North America and frequent the ‘West Indian/Guyanese’ stores to get my kind of food and would like to share some experiences with readers. This might sound like a joke. First of all, one of the most expensive products exported out of Guyana is frozen water. You will find it as ice in packages of shrimps, some fish and katahar (breadnut). It should be noted that the addition of water to these products is to increase weight, hence more money for the exporters. It is easy to add water to shrimps and fish, but our countrymen are smart. Katahar, after peeling, cleaning and shredding is
bulky and light in weight. Someone found an indigenous way to increase the weight by steaming (precooked) it so that it can absorb water. It is then packaged, frozen and exported to overseas markets. When it stays too long it has a bad odour and there is no manufacturing/package and best before dates. The same goes for fish, crabs, shrimps, dried fish and shrimps, sliced green mangoes, bilimbi, coconut choka etc. there are not manufacturing/package and best before dates. Produce exported are also of poor quality. Guyanese have a tendency to export produce and no effort is made to grade their produce with regards to size and quality to attract overseas shoppers. This goes for most produce. Let’s take one; wiri wiri peppers, you have the good - all sizes and the bad lumped together and sent to overseas markets. This should not happen, because very soon consumers will notice the poor quality and stop buying. I can relate about a lot of fruits, vegetables and greens that are of poor quality coming out of Guyana. Some produce like boulangers, bora, seim, peppers, cassava,
plantains, wiri wiri peppers etc., are now grown and exported by Jamaica, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic, and are of better quality. The relevant Ministries need to get their act together to put systems in place and come up with a detailed method of identifying each product sent to overseas markets and set strict guidelines for grading and packaging each product that meets or exceeds international standards. Maybe come up a brand ‘Made in Guyana’ logo that they can give to exporters after qualifying them using strict guidelines and continuous monitoring. I for one wouldn’t mind paying more for a quality product and at the same time supporting our local farmers. Also of note is the fact that even the ‘West Indian/ Guyanese’ stores will try to hoodwink you by trying to ‘pass off’ their bad products, and you always have to be on the lookout for overbilling, and most don’t give an itemized receipt. So it seems that we have to be wary of our countrymen in and out of Guyana. Your Sincerely Name and address withheld
Contractors’ Bid Offers and Engineers’ Estimates – Some Remarks DEAR EDITOR, Please refer to your article on page 12 of your Good Friday edition of your newspaper entitled “Questionable Engineers’ Estimates costing Guyana Billion$”. Your piece seems to comprise both the record of bids opened for two building contracts and simultaneously a vilification by your journalist in support of (local) contractors. Engineers were the target. The content did not support the Header. Unwittingly, the article did not expose the engineer but instead highlighted the seemingly unexplained wide variation in price offers by (local) contractors. It may be noted that engineer’s estimates seek only to offer a figure for the owner’s budget while a contracting firm’s bid seeks to offer the owner a competitive price, thereby a win of the contract, the firm’s technical capability being demonstrated . These costings are therefore approached from different perspectives. One would note that, in the case of the two
contracts in the article, the engineer’s employer would have sufficient sums to support the projects, regardless of which firm was awarded the contracts. Let’s look at the offers made by contractors. In the first record, there are 13 offers (bids) by contractors which ranged from $8.1 million to $12.8 million; there is a significant disparity in bids, the largest being $4.7 million. The contractors may wish to explain how offers for the same building can have as much as 58+% difference. Taking the second record of bids, the conclusions are similar. There are 12 bids with offers ranging from $7.3 million to $11.6 million and a disparity of $4.3 million, also roughly 60%. While both Govt. and private engineering organisations use engineers to prepare cost estimates, such engineers do not have training in quantity surveying and therefore are not adequately prepared to make cost assessments. This is the function of Quantity Surveyors. This norm ought to be remedied.
Usually, rates for building activities when prepared by qualified staff would consider reasonable inputs for overhead and profit, and provide for depreciation of plant and equipment – the latter being essential for contracting firms gearing for the long haul businesswise. While contracting firms are the best source to explain why bids have such significant variances, it is possible that some contractors seek to win contracts by applying the very minimum cost margins for overhead and profit, forget to fully consider VAT, do not adequately provide for replacement of plant and equipment, and ignore allocations for risk. This usually results in poor contracting outcomes and failed projects. Your article has revived previous claims of corruption. However, both Kaieteur News and the Contractors should provide evidence to the appropriate Tender Authorities so that their concerns may be investigated. Best regards Paul Bonar, Sr.