GUYANA’S IMAGE MAKEOVER

Jul 02, 2017 AFC Column, Features / Columnists

---

When Jamaican Prime Minister, Andrew Holness, paid a courtesy call on Prime Minister, Moses Nagamootoo in July 2016 he’d remarked, “Guyana is on the cusp of a boom period.” Prime Minister Holness’ well-intended (and accurate) statement was a distinct departure from what had been said about Guyana by one of his predecessors in the past decade during Jagdeo’s presidency. That counterpart of his had suggested that Guyana had earned its global reputation as “an international panhandler.”
Ouch! Panhandling is an act of begging strangers for materials and favours. The term was derived in the 19th Century, probably from the image of a begging arm stuck out like the handle of a pan. The Jamaican PM was not pulling any punches.
In the decades before the PPP fell on Guyana, despite the huge economic problems which were brought about mostly by spiraling fuel prices, we were still able to command considerable respect in the region. We were hit by imported material and food shortages, but we became inventive instead and manufactured what we needed. It was called “import substitution”. Then the PPP happened.
Fuel prices had fallen by 1989 and the cost of living was sliding downward under the hands of Desmond Hoyte and Dr. Cheddi Jagan. By 1997, several things had ‘conspired’ against our country – some external, some misfortune, some avoidable and much of it self-inflicted.
Our international image began to fray. By 2014, it was in tatters and battered. Then came the announcement the next year of a commercially viable find of oil and gas in our Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and the direction of our social and economic trajectory changed.
Before then, regional and international reportage on Guyana had been exclusively negative. From questionable general elections and a 20-year absence of local government elections to obscene corruption; crime spiraling out of control; extra-judicial and alleged state-sponsored killings; on to becoming an unapologetic narco-economy and a major transshipment point for illicit drugs; to nepotism and cronyism in government, in business … Guyana attracted only negative attention.

THINGS ARE CHANGING
Our international image is taking on a new patina. The reason for this is two-fold.
The first and most obvious is due to the enormous oil field found in the Stabroek Block. Forbes Magazine, Bloomberg News, the New York Times newspaper and other high profile media outlets with international audiences are now reporting favourably, and even excitedly, about Guyana. They have said that the quantity of oil and gas in these Atlantic waters represent one of the world’s largest fields of untapped hydrocarbons.
We found a June 2016 Forbes article titled ‘With second Big Oil Discovery, Exxon puts Guyana on the Map’. A Bloomberg article in July 2015 opens with “[A]n ExxonMobil Corp. discovery in the Atlantic Ocean off Guyana may hold oil and natural gas riches 12 times more valuable than the nation’s entire economic output”.
And in January 2017, New York Times’ Clifford Krauss wrote “Guyana … is poised to become the next big oil producer in the Western Hemisphere, attracting the attention and investment dollar of some of the biggest oil companies in the world.” Matt Blomerth, head of Latin American Upstream Research for natural resources analyst Wood Mackenzie (Houston, Texas): “It’s not often that a country goes from 0 to 60 so fast like this”. Industry excitement over Guyana was really stirred by another widely distributed report from Wood Mackenzie that said, “Guyana is rapidly joining the ranks of serious oil and gas players”.
The second reason is the restoration of executive decency and order following the historic 2015 elections. The Government is constantly implementing new measures as we reset the foundation for a truly democratic nation and a model developing economy. Of course, it is for the benefit of every Guyanese that international confidence is returning.
Just as a reminder, here are a few of the pluses that our ambitious 2-year-old coalition government has chalked up:
1. The Public Procurement Commission has been established to remove the authority for approving contracts from Cabinet.
2. The Fiscal Management and Accountability (Amendment) Act has been passed. This Act allows constitutional agencies such as the Parliament, GECOM and the Judicial Service Commission to manage their finances without government control.
3. The Telecommunications Liberalization Bill was passed to make way for the removal of exclusivity by GTT. We can look forward to an open, potentially thriving telecoms sector.
4. The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has finally opened its field office in Guyana after several years of being frustrated, stymied and blocked.
5. The UK Security Sector Reform Programme is alive again. It had been scrapped by the PPP regime. British Senior Security Sector Reform Advisor, Mr. Russell Combe, is in the process of setting up his operations.
6. After residing on the ‘Tier 2 Watch List’ for three consecutive years (2013-2015), Guyana was reclassified this year as a ‘Tier 1’ country in the US Department of State’s 2017 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report. This is a testament of the level of determination your Government has to erase this country’s reputation as a source and destination country for trafficked persons.
Today Guyana sits among the group of countries that fully meet the minimum requirements (for action) for elimination of trafficking, and we are the second Caribbean country to reach this milestone.
This list of achievements is much longer, but we are not nearly satisfied with progress to date. In the words of that famous 1970’s singing duo, the Carpenters, we’ve only just begun! What’s been done to date is only the start of that thousand-mile marathon to the place where Guyana ought to be.
It certainly feels good to do the right things at this most promising juncture in our history.

---

---