Oil sorrows – is Guyana a prime candidate?

Nov 17, 2021 Editorial

Kaieteur News – The Guardian published an article on November 9th titled, “A wealth of sorrow: why Nigeria’s abundant oil reserves are really a curse.” Undoubtedly, it can be said with accuracy that that is the cursed oil reality of woeful Nigeria. Increasingly, this looks the likely fate of Guyana, too.
As identified in the Guardian’s article, all the indicators are present in Nigeria, have been so for many decades, with the results confirming that Nigeria, “the sixth-largest global exporter” and holding “the tenth-largest proven oil reserve in the world” is living the nightmares of resource curse and the “paradox of plenty.” For all the plentiful oil that it has in the world, and all the revenues that flowed over the years from it, Nigeria is a sick and sorry state.
Its institutions are weak and ineffective, and corruption is so widespread, as to impact most of its citizens, who fare much more poorly than their peers in other countries who are less resource gifted. Its export earnings, which should have made it the envy of the world, have done the opposite. On a comparative basis, there are “lower growth rates, lower levels of human development, and more inequality and poverty.” The culprits (we prefer the much stronger criminals) responsible for such bewildering states are poor political governors, and pathetic institutions. When taken together, it makes for grim reading.
As we examine what is not altogether unfamiliar news, it is obvious that we already have some of the draining negatives that are the savaging realities of Nigeria, along with Venezuela, and other Third World countries that really belong high in the pack of rapidly developing ones. The case could be made that, if the oil wealth was managed politically sensibly and cleanly, from the inception, then Nigeria and Venezuela should have been at the lower end of top tier countries in the world. With due considerations for the volatility of world market prices for oil, they ought to be far ahead of where they are today. Nigeria and others should not be lagging behind, like some resource poor state brethren.
The people who study these developments, the vast expanse of national horrors, and actually possess authoritative and respected positions on oil related phenomena, have pointed to what is arguably the biggest problem. It is corruption, and whenever it raises its monstrous head, it is chronic and toxic, and makes for anemic societies. Men are responsible for corruption. Crooked and callous men, who are so twisted, that they brutally murder the aspirations of their people, while taking care of themselves.
Though Guyanese do not need the enlightenment, The Guardian identified them as the exploiters: “multinationals, national and foreign governments, the foreign financiers and investors, alongside the structures of states and private actors in oil exporting countries.” We quietly ask our fellow Guyanese to take a slow, long, and careful look at each of those groups, and the conclusions have to be that we have all of them right here in Guyana, and right now in these very early days of our oil producing and exporting. Like vultures around a fat prize, they gorge themselves, while a good many Guyanese already sense that they are going to end up like Nigerians or Venezuelans.
Guyana has these rapacious multinational exploiters, with Exxon being the foremost. Regarding exploiters in the form of “national and foreign governments” we are well versed in the ways of both the prior Coalition Government, and the current PPP Government, and outside ones running to help, but mostly themselves. In fact, this all started to take shape and substance some 20 years ago, under a previous PPP Government. The “financiers and investors” from America to the Middle East are flocking here, vultures of identical feather. And there are the “structures of state” with the local EPA and state media standing in front of the line, as caricatures of what they should be. Last there are the “individual actors” who would be that less than one percent of Guyanese (around 50) in the political and private sectors, that meet every definition of the word “super elite.”
When all this is considered, it is now undeniable that the casket of oil sorrows has stopped in Guyana’s yard, and it isn’t going anywhere.

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