Guyana is a “frontier country” heading down the slope

Mar 05, 2017 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Guyana is on the path of having a Government with absolute economic and political powers. If you look at most “frontier countries”, which are countries that have vast wealth of untapped natural resources but lack the ability to extract and process those resources on their own; you will see these countries would then go into partnerships with multinationals, such as oil and mining companies.
Guyana is deemed a “frontier country” and there are few things that happen to frontier countries that we must be aware of. All or most of the investments to extract and process our oil is coming from the oil company and not the state.
This is an investment and therefore there must be a return on investment at a very high profit margin. This simply means that the oil company now owns most of the revenues coming from the oil and the country will get as very little as possible. This works in favor of the company, since the country will remain economically weak while the company gains more strength.
The political system must be at the disposal of the oil company at all cost, since it is crucial to the return on investment. If the government is not in full agreement with the company, the company will foresee the risk of losing leverage to a people empowered government and thus may be forced to give the state a bigger piece of the pie. This does not mean the government will not have power, but only the government will have the power. The people and its democratic system will be completely useless.
The puppet government must remain in power for a very long time by any means necessary. This is done by ensuring that the government is fully financed and equipped to control the people by becoming the absolute economic and political power in the country. Therefore the people are forced to depend on it for everything that means something to them. This is the theory of dependency that renders the people powerless and the few in control with absolute power.
Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Papua New Guinea, Bolivia, Venezuela and many other countries have either gone through or currently going through this form of capitalist rapacity that have left the people in poverty while the few puppets to the company brand themselves demigods of the land.
In the case of Nigeria, the military and the state apparatus joined forces to keep the people under control while serving the needs of companies like Shell. Shell has even been named in aiding the assignation of political leaders who have defended the rights of the people in Nigeria.
In Equatorial Guinea, the country is led by a super elite family of the President and his children, controlling every aspect of the extractive sector and the state apparatus to ensure the oil company profits. Guinea boasts the highest GDP growth in Africa, while more than 75% of their people live below the poverty line.
There is a large amount of natural gas in Papua New Guinea. The people are forced off their lands that they lived on for thousands of years while getting little to nothing for their lands, while the Government gives big promises but nothing else.
Guyana seems to be heading down that same path and the signs are clear; we see a Government rising to power with empty promises and propaganda of division to remain in control. They expand taxes to drain the economic power of the people, therefore making them dependent on the state economic machinery.
We are seeing the establishment of special units to conduct investigations supported by military resources. This will be followed by mandates in the future to suppress freedom of speech and people who are in opposition to their rule.
You can see that by expanding the net of taxes across a wider range of economic activities, the Government will be in a position to suck back all the monies from oil and the correlating economic spin offs in the country.
What is even more important to note is that Guyana is not seen as a partner of parity at the negotiating table, since they bring nothing of value to the company in their eyes. The company actually has positioned themselves as a superior entity in every way. Their negotiating skills are superior, they have the political and wealth capital to control Guyana, which means we are viewed merely as a piece of farm land with a few underlings to feed and keep quiet.
There is a very small window to curb this potential disaster and that time is now. In a few years or less, we will lose any opportunity to gain back our rights to gain from our natural resources. Movements like the protest against the Parking Meters are where we need to build on to keep the pressure on or any future Governments from taking us down a path of hopelessness.
Malcolm Watkins

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