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Transactions involving natural resources must require parliamentary ratification

Jun 30, 2021 Letters

Reference is made to Mr. Vishnu Bisram’s letter, “I am in support of rescuing GuySuCo through land leases”. (KN June 29). Mr. Bisram raised a very interesting concept that has never been debated – not in the parliament nor in the media. Government is spending billions of dollars to resuscitate a bankrupt State-owned sugar business with a zero chance of making this business viable again under its present form.
Transferring ownership of the land (selling or leasing) to sugar workers, let them take ownership as well as the risk of growing sugar cane; let government or private investors take charge of the factories to turn the cane into sugar and molasses and market the products. This is a concept that works well in India. In this way, the Government of Guyana would not have to bail out GuySuCo annually to the tune of billions of dollars.
To me the absence of debate and consideration of alternative ideas of how to turn around an ailing sugar business was not the most important point of Mr. Bisram’s letter. In the State of Guyana major decisions – leasing of a million acres of our forest to Chinese companies, negotiating and signing an Oil Contract with ExxonMobil, Selling of Oil Blocks – are regularly drawn up and executed by the government without the involvement of the parliament.
In normal, regular democracies, the Oil Contract and the Selling of the Oil Blocks would have required debate and ratification by the parliament before they could become valid. Someone pointed out to me that the Administration always commands the majority vote in parliament and therefore a parliamentary ratification would have been just a formality. That is true – but there would have been a vigorous debate in the parliament. Such debate would have exposed all the things that are wrong with the Oil Contract. Ditto with selling off Oil Blocks in secret days before an election and transfer of power. Ditto with leasing a few million acres of our forest to Chinese companies.
It is time the people of Guyana stand up and start demanding changes to our system of governance.
Mike Persaud

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