A fishy budget proposal

Feb 01, 2022 Editorial

Kaieteur News – We have to give it to the Guyana Government for its chronic slickness. When its leaders want to dodge reality and its related responsibilities, they pull out all the stops to make things happen a certain way, and for what we must describe as murky ulterior motives, and carefully concealed agendas. In this instance, it involves the local fishing sector, which has been plagued with punishing problems of late. As if in response to the plight of these fisherfolks and their families, and Guyanese who once used to be able to consume their catch, what the PPP/C Government came up with is now embedded in a proposal in this year’s budget soon to be debated in Guyana’s parliament. Our caption informed readers that, “Govt. is pumping $200 million into unproven fish cage initiative – says investment will help revive industry hard-hit by low catch” (KN January 28).
If the PPP/C Government was an honest one, and if its leaders were credible and worthy of our trust, then we could say that has some substance, we could back it, and the government should run with it, once the hurdle of the National Assembly is cleared. But it cannot be believed and, therefore, the necessary confidence required to stand for investments like these is just not there. This is most unfortunate, but in view of the serial misrepresentations and mistakes of this PPP/C Government (and old ones, too), what we discern is yet another occasion where the slickness of government leaders that we spoke of earlier in this writing is just under the surface.
In the first place, this proposed $200 million budgetary investment in “unproven fish cage” helps to divert the attention of fisherfolk and watching Guyanese away from the realities that are going on with our fishermen plying the domestic seas for an honest living, as they have done for generations. The reality is that their catch in recent times has fallen off steeply, with the result that fishermen and their families are in agony, from the loss of income on a continuing basis. A collateral effect is that Guyanese who consume fish are forced to hunt for whatever product of the sea is available, and when they do find such now scarce items, they are most likely going to be extremely expensive. For its part, the Government, through this $200 million investment, gets to tout that it is conscious of the crisis in the fishing sector, and it has moved to do something of significance about it. If only that were the whole of the story.
For, as we see it, what the PPP/C Government is doing is to clear the way for Exxon’s offshore operations, and giving the company as much space (mileage) as it needs to conduct its business as it sees fit. Government leaders kneel before the priorities and dictates of Exxon, and the interests and pain of fishermen be damned. Today, it is the lot of fishermen to be steered away from their hunting grounds and familiar comfort zone. In the future, it could be our coastlands and marine life impacted in wider and wider boundaries seized by Exxon to explore for and produce and ship crude, so that its bottom line can sizzle, and its shareholders rejoice from enriching dividends, on the backs of Guyanese citizens.
The fact that the government is venturing into a still unproven area with fish cage thinking, and one with limited returns in the places where it has been experimented with, does not sound like a wise use of Guyanese taxpayers’ dollars. By now, it is an old story in this country that on most occasions that leaders in PPP/C Governments have experimented with millions in public money, there has been little to show for it. One of the most glaring examples is that white elephant, the modernised Skeldon sugar factory, which is a multi-million dollar (U.S.) monument to the expensive fiascos delivered to Guyanese, and for which they are responsible.
Taking into consideration, the $200 million price tag for the fish cage, it could also function as a slush fund for cronies of leaders to help themselves under the pretense of aiding fisherfolk. Like we said, slickness in the budget.