Oil and Gas conference

Feb 17, 2022 Editorial

Kaieteur News – A blown-up blimp with a lot of hot air. Like the Zeppelin, Guyana’s much hailed Oil and Gas Conference turned out to be a crash and burn affair. It was a four-day love fest, with our own Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, doing his best imitation of St. Valentine, by extending the romance from Monday throughout the week. Like many things, the Vice President tries his hand at, he failed miserably, looked feeble, sounded pathetic: nothing on full coverage insurance, not a word on contract renegotiation. His Excellency, President Dr. Irfaan Ali, was also in attendance, but he flattered to deceive with focus on interest rate (a good thing), but silence on promise made on TV and radio: all contracts on the table. This set the tone for the conference, a dud even before it had begun, the first word was said, with Guyanese leadership deceptions and evasions of hard issue before foreign bloodsuckers and local wolves in sheep clothing.
The high points were few and far apart. The Hon. Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados, was responsible for one such sparkling moment. What she said for the audience of foreign dignitaries and corporate ‘low-lifes’ must resonate, with Guyanese leaders and the Guyanese people. It was that “Guyanese must not be tenants in their own country” (KN February 16). We could not have said it better, have said it more often, and are delighted that a person with the status of PM Mottley could have recognised where we are, what we have become already, in the midst of this fabulous oil wealth, merely tenants.
It is enlightening to hear this truth from her for several reasons. As a woman, she should know something about the home, and of being either an owner or a tenant. As a Prime Minister, one who just took the leap and severed ties with a longstanding colonial master, she would know about the second-class status of tenants. As an outsider relative to Guyana’s political chambers, she still knows enough to assert authoritatively that what we have here risks reducing Guyanese to low tenants in our own home; nothing could be more eye-opening than what the Barbadian PM warned about.
As an outsider, her words had to ring thunderously with the courageous, hardy, and patriotic Guyanese who stood outside the conference corridors and braved the rains to protest the political rogueries of compromised, corrupted, and captive Guyanese leaders. They have failed Guyanese at every step and in every aspect of their oil and gas stewardship. Her call is for leaders to do better for Guyana, which they have not done. ExxonMobil can and must do better for Guyana and all Guyanese. The leaders of that corporate colossus have not done so either, so greedy and evilly selfish they are. It is why they came with their pretty speeches to dance on the grave of the Guyanese people that Exxon itself dug for them to ensure its own profitability and near perpetual prosperity.
Another conference highlight was when Suriname’s President Chandrikapersad Santokhi took the spotlight to insist that “New found (sic) oil wealth must benefit generations to come” (KN February 16). He has done that for his people, through the management policies and strategies employed in Suriname, but his words most likely fell on deaf ears in the persons of Guyana’s leaders, so consumed they are with their own personal wealth accumulation from this oil and gas. President Santokhi has done well for Surinamese; Guyanese still wait and long for a fraction of the same here. We at this paper will lead the charge in the struggle to get more, do better, with this wealth that is ours; we own it, we will not settle for tenancy or poverty.
Another leader, one from Africa, and though not the best example, had wise words for Guyana’s leaders: “Be transparent with oil money, minimise flaring – Ghanaian President tells Guyana Govt.” (KN February 16). More verbal counselling, warnings also. We don’t think that the President and the Vice President are listening, since they shrink from talking about full-coverage insurance and contract renegotiation. Exxon’s Darren Woods would be offended, and cowardly local leaders move to please him worshipfully. Guyanese suffer.