GUYANA MUST TRANSFORM ITS INSTITUTIONS FOR SUCCESS IN OIL ERA

Mar 08, 2020 Consumer Concerns, News

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By PAT DIAL

Since Guyana became an “Oil Country”, there have been a great number of prescriptions put forward mostly by persons involved in politics as to what to do with the oil revenues.
The consumers feel that they should now make public what they had been discussing in their committees and their position on oil revenues. In approaching this issue, we have a number of basic assumptions:
(1) Oil is a national resource and as such should not be controlled by any political party but should be controlled by the whole nation. The mechanism for achieving this will be discussed below.
(2) Oil is not a self-generating resource as Agriculture but is a finite one that will come to an end. More than one country has experienced the trauma of diminishing oil reserves and the beginnings of a reversion to a struggling economy. Trinidad is an example.
(3) Oil is a commodity where its prices are determined by market forces. Sometimes oil prices could fall so low that producers could be selling almost at a loss. This means that Guyana should be prepared for times when it would be receiving little or no oil revenues.
(4) Oil wealth should not be consumed in a heady splurge as some are advocating. Rather, it should be used to generate wealth for present and generational security. The formula we are suggesting is that two-thirds of the revenues should be invested in developmental projects, some of which have been crying out for capital infusions for nearly a century now; and the other one-third would be used for consumption. We will touch on this in greater detail below.
(5) As the oil industry develops, there would be a large number of immigrants from different parts of the world attempting to settle here. There would be so many that they would overwhelm the present small Guyanese population subsuming its cultural life and assumptions, and its legal and political institutions. Measures, including quick revision of the citizenship laws, will have to be taken to confront this danger.
(6) The Guyanese Diaspora including their children should be welcomed back to their motherland and in this regard, the citizenship laws will be amended to give them the status of all Guyanese by birth. Further, people of Guyanese background who are employed in the Oil and Gas industries in other parts of the world and are desirous of working in the Guyana industry, should be welcomed and the oil companies must know that they have to employ such personnel, once suitable.
(7) In the media there is talk of jobs being available for thousands in the oil industry but yet young people and others do not see or know where such jobs are or how to apply for them. All jobs available in the oil industry should be published by the State or Oil Authority and the methodology of applying.
This should be in collaboration with the oil companies and their contractors. People of Guyanese ancestry should be given precedence, even if they have to be trained.
We will now briefly discuss how the above-mentioned points could be achieved:
The oil revenues would be much more than the national budgets. The present governmental structures and even institutions were not designed to deal with such large sums of money. Accordingly, a special Corporation will have to be established for the oil industry which will be responsible for collection of revenues and the allocation of funds, the formula of two-thirds to development and one-third for consumption being adhered to.
The controlling Board or Council of this Corporation must be truly national. It shall consist of nominees (not representatives) of the Parliamentary political parties, the Private Sector, the Trade Unions, and a few relevant NGO’s.
No group shall have more than one nominee so that the board would not become too large or dysfunctional. The mechanism of this Board will have to be worked out in much greater detail.
Under the Board will be an Administrative Structure with a Chief Executive Officer within whose province will fall such matters as engineering, marketing, OPEC, negotiating with foreign counterparts and so on.
The Board and its CEO will also be responsible for receiving and allocating funds to Government and the Sovereign Wealth Fund so that there would be greater transparency.
As suggested above, two-thirds of the funds will be allocated to Economic Development and one-third for Consumption. The third for Consumption would be used by Government for things such as increasing pensions, and upgrading Educational and Health Services among others.
This will include the founding of Specialty Hospitals in each of the three counties.
There are a number of industries awaiting capital infusions such as the Sugar and Rice Industries and Agriculture in general. With the modernization of Agriculture, there would be cheaper local food and the growth of a profitable export market.
In the Caribbean alone, for example, there is a US$6 billion market awaiting Guyana’s food exports. The solar and hydropower industries could be resuscitated as well as other industries for import substitution and export.
The stimulation of and investment in Industry would require the establishment of a Development Bank which would make funds available and ensure that they are well used There are other facets and activities of this Oil Corporation which could not be dealt with owing to the limitation of space.
We will therefore now only touch on the large number of immigrants who will be coming into the country. This influx of immigrants could overwhelm our small population subsuming or even eliminating the Guyanese cultural norms which we developed over the last two centuries, our legal and political institutions and even our way of life as we know it today.
Accordingly, if any immigrant is given long-term residence or naturalized, he/she should be able to speak and write English, should have a knowledge of the culture and history of the country and be willing to integrate.
We could also use a formula once used in the United States where quotas of immigrants are given to the ancestral homelands of the present population of Guyana.
Our Diaspora and their children should be accorded a special status and should be allowed to enter and leave the country like any other native born Guyanese. All of this demands that our Immigration and Citizenship Laws must be urgently revised and modernized.
Guyana has very little time to transform its Law, Administration and even Constitution to successfully survive in this new Era of Oil which has suddenly come upon us.

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