Guyana doomed if citizens have no say in spending of oil money- Ram

Apr 08, 2018 News

Attorney at Law, Christopher Ram

Attorney at Law, Christopher Ram, is foreseeing doomsday for Guyana if the citizens are excluded from the making of decisions regarding what to do with the potential revenues to be received from oil. Ram said that based on the failure of successive governments to protect the nation’s patrimony, it is clear that certain decisions cannot be left up to the politicians.
The accountant said this at the recent triennial conference of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Guyana (FITUG).
Ram has been quite critical of the lopsided Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) that Guyana signed with ExxonMobil. He noted on many occasions that the nation is being given crumbs while it is allowing ExxonMobil to extract billions upon billions of dollars worth of oil.
He told attendees of the conference that Guyana is poised to be the top oil producing country in the work, per capita.

Source: http://world.bymap.org/OilProduction.html [as modified by Ram]

Ram provided a list of oil producing countries of the world. The list has been adapted to reflect the annual barrels per capita and the annual revenue resulting there from. Guyana, which was not previously included, was added to list at the capacity of producing 500,000 barrels per day. The price of a barrel of oil has been assumed at US$50.
The original list had Russia as the top oil producing country. Ram said that while Russia’s daily production is approximately 20 times that of Guyana’s estimated production, “it should be noted that when ranked by annual total oil revenue per capita, Guyana will stand as number one amongst the oil-producing countries of the world.”
Ram continued, “Translated to revenue, and given the expected volumes, the impact on the economy and on Guyanese will be substantial, despite a poorly negotiated contract.”
He said that indeed, even using conservative numbers, “we expect Government revenues to triple when both the direct and indirect revenues are taken into account.” Ram said that the next challenge is of course how the money needs to be spent.
The attorney at law said that the people must have a say in how government will spend the oil money.
He said, “If Guyanese workers have as much say in the spending as they have had in collective bargaining or the environmental implications of oil production, then the Government will simply act in its own style and judgment.”

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