Govt. must initiate broad consultations on new Natural Resource Fund, not railroad its bill

Dec 28, 2021 Letters

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Dear Editor,

Kaieteur News – Observers say the PPP is stealthily rushing its new NRF bill (and repealing the NRF Act already passed) while the nation is distracted by year-end festivities. Knowing how “politricks” work in Guyana, this is a plausible explanation for the rush. Exxon, Hess and CNOOC are shipping away the bulk of our oil wealth, leaving us a little larwah. For the oil companies, every day is Christmas.
They get billions and we get a little fine change. We don’t want any party in Government – PNC nor PPP – to steal the little larwah that will be left in the NRF (the fund where all our oil money will be kept). Truth be told, when both parties lost the government in 2015 and 2020, many felt their Governments had become kleptocracies. Every day, news coming out of the Public Accounts Committee hearings or the Auditor General’s Reports is a catalog of the ongoing “fleecing of Guyana.” Across all of the Government agencies, billions are unaccounted for, mismanaged and transactions are questionable and there are no announcements of anyone going to jail for such crimes against the nation. Such malfeasance robs the nation of roads, medicines, dialysis treatment in rural areas, laptops or tablets for poor rural children, etc. We must not allow the NRF to become a victim of such shenanigans.
Next year, the Auditor General’s report will say similar things. And nothing will change. The Auditor General complained that 62% of his recommendations for accountability has not been implemented. This has been so under both the reigns of the PPP and PNC. None of these parties want to block loopholes, fix broken systems, or have stronger accountability and transparency. They leave the loopholes there so when it’s their turn in Government, they continue to rape the nation’s resources. The two parties, loyal to the oil companies and both against renegotiation of the bad oil deal, are like serial rapists against the nation.
They have relegated the 42% of people below the poverty line, living on US$5.50 per day (IDB, 2020), to mendicants and targets for the Government playing Santa Claus all year delivering hampers “Because We Care.” Unless they renegotiate the oil contract to obtain more income for Guyana in the Natural Resource Fund, we will have to deliver hampers to our working poor people forever. The ones who will get rich are the business people, contractors, and connected friends of the ruling party. Guyana has billions of barrels of the “sweetest” oil in the world, but the oil companies are having a feast. The rich are getting richer and the working poor are getting poorer, and we take the pictures of the poor and put them in the papers showing how we are giving them hampers. Billions for the oil companies and hampers for the working poor!
The NRF is too important for the Government to rush through without discussions with the parliamentary Opposition, which represents almost half of the population. The PPP justifiably leveled such a criticism against the PNC for unilaterally and secretly signing a giveaway oil contract without the involvement of Parliament or the public. Now the PPP must not act unilaterally, force-feeding its NRF Bill on the nation without wide public consultation. If the Government truly believes in “One Guyana,” then “Half Guyana” -the PPP- must not take unilateral action as the PNC did with the oil contract. A petition, coordinated by the Policy Forum Guyana and representing several Guyanese groups of stakeholders, has called on the National Assembly to pause any debate on the Natural Resources Fund Act (NRFA) in order that the government must fully engage with both the opposition and civil society on amending the NRF Act with the Natural Resources Sector Committee of Parliament available to facilitate such a process. Will the Government listen?
I warn the PPP not to repeat the mistakes of the PNC that caused them to be in the Opposition benches now. We need a new era of governance where big deals involving our national natural resources must be discussed, debated and decided by the entire Parliament and civic society stakeholders, because as we have seen with the bad oil contract, the actions of one Government can bind the actions of a successor Government to the detriment of the nation. The PPP has a historic opportunity to change the paradigm of governance. If the Government shows recalcitrance in this matter, then it creates good justification for the emergence of an Oil Renegotiation Party. We are watching to see what the Government side does in parliament on Wednesday. The people do not want any one party to get its sticky fingers on the nation’s wealth. It’s our country, our wealth! Stand up for Guyana, for transparency, for accountability and stakeholder involvement!

Sincerely,
Dr. Jerry Jailall

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