Guyana has not transformed itself so it can properly benefit from its oil

Dec 13, 2019 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

Guyana is an opportunity for the oil industry to prove to the world that it does not have to be exploitative and predatory when operating in weak or fragile countries.
The size of the initial spike in growth due to oil revenue is not a useful indicator of whether Guyana will evolve into a successful country (a Singapore) or into a disappointment (an Equatorial Guinea).
Is Guyana less likely to succeed if the predicted growth rate was 46 percent instead of 86 percent, or more likely to succeed if it was 126 percent instead of 86 percent? The answer is no.
The important question and the challenge facing Guyana is how to translate a spike in revenue into sustainable and equitable growth—growth that transforms the lives of the majority of the people, especially those of the poor, and growth that heals our disabling ills (such as racial competition/conflict, high levels of interpersonal violence, rampant corruption, as well as ad-hoc and chaotic decision making).
For Guyana to benefit from its oil revenue, we needed to have seen major changes over the last four years.
We needed to have seen a sense of urgency and a different mode of behaviour.
But, unfortunately, Guyana’s leaders do not seem to understand the situation and what is needed, and Guyana has not prepared or transformed itself so it can properly benefit from its oil.
Our leaders have been passive and not active and seem to rely on trickle-down economics instead of implementing transformative policies.
They have been bickering and fighting, which already is a sign of the resource curse.
They have created false expectations as part of their electioneering, instead of creating and implementing a new realistic vision for Guyana.
It is likely that the election results will spur even more fighting, and the international community will have less leverage to rein in our bickering leaders, who now think they are oil rich and can ignore Washington, London and Toronto (and instead can buy new friends in Beijing and Moscow, as well as in Lagos and Luanda).”

Dr. Jan Mangal
(Oil and Gas Consultant
Former Petroleum Advisor
to the president of Guyana)

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