Oil and Gas confab – our contradictions in stark relief

Feb 22, 2022 Letters

---

DEAR EDITOR,

Guyana’s Oil Conference furnished many confirmations. A carnival of leadership weakness, of prosperities denied this oil producing nation. Though as old as oil itself, it is how this country has succeeded in converting grand opportunity into pathetic failure. We have oil, we have the world at our feet, but we are bowing down, rolling over like whipped, cowed, humbled curs.
I heard the Vice President speaking for the first time. I shuddered. Exxon had the best salesman, slickest pitchman. The man was advocate, defender, hustler for oil interests, the Stockholm Syndrome evident at Guyana’s highest leadership level. When this Guyanese leader prioritised Exxon’s risks, placed incentivising the company uppermost, the game was up; Guyana’s needs, rights, priorities were all downplayed to the secondary. He did.
I am capitalist at heart, and for Exxon and company to be rewarded for their risks, but Guyana cannot be near zero in the compensation/prosperity formula. After hearing the Vice President, I concluded that he was helpless, hogtied. When our top leaders, President and Vice President, come across as crawling, kowtowing, surrendering mascots of Exxon’s playbook, hymnbook, and cheque book, Guyana’s goose was cooked. This was how men immortalise themselves in infamy.
There was Exxon’s Darren Woods warbling about Guyana as one of the most exciting places in the world; there was Guyana’s oil head with oratorical dimness emphasising Exxon’s risk-reward matrix. The Vice President had a glorious opportunity to tell all comers that Guyana has what it takes; Guyana is where the rich action is at; Guyana is IT.
And that Guyana will welcome explorers, producers, and partners, but only those with the calibre of genuine partners. Such partners will do handsomely, but so must we. So we must. We will no longer welcome predators and pillagers. We mean business, like the Chinese: our way or highway. This is how it should have been from Guyana’s Vice President, but was not. He had to give all notice that all, local and foreign, must have proper share of Guyana’s pie, a respectable one. But nothing of such was on the table, save for the occasional mention in muted language of Guyana’s existence in oil excitements. By seeming prearrangement, by whatever duress that Guyana’s two leaders operated under, there was mainly homage to investors and risks, an exercise in valorous cowardice.

Meanwhile, the stark tale of Guyana, of how this oil blessing transforms to curse, was unfolding outside. In a spring-loaded phrase, it was of Guyana’s haves and have-nots, and it alarmed.
Because beyond the conference perimeter was the left out, left behind, and left alone Guyanese who expect more congealed into the material from which rage builds and resistance comes. It is the prosperity’s passions. As Guyana’s leaders hurry merrily along, the embers were there, outside the grand opulent Marriott. On the inside were the many haves, those well ensconced at the banquet table. It is the natural selection of oil economics, the fittest flourishing. This cannot stand, while many see by the margins, where they are dismissed.

This is the stuff of three words that all begin with r. I caution. Leadership oil repressions and arrogant disdains fuel the most potentially serious upheavals. Of the spirit, environment, national fabric. I warn again. Slavery and indentureship bound us uneasily together, independence did not free us, now oil makes serfs of us. What should have been Guyana’s glittering moment of self-assertion through necessary self-correction deteriorated into the ugliness of Guyana’s leadership weaknesses (again), an extravaganza on behalf of Exxon’s righteousness and mightiness tightly coupled to Guyana’s leadership spinelessness and dutifulness. As an American, I should be thrilled. I am not. As a Guyanese, I should be stricken.

I am. Once again, our leaders fail us abjectly, when the cards in hand favour, when the world rushes to our threshold with hat in hand, knee curtsying slightly. We have the world where we want it, and as customary in Guyana, we wasted the moment, opportunity.
Separately, President and Vice President had opening for inclusion, through welcoming opposition and civil society members. They didn’t. They had to battle for Guyana.
They didn’t again. This is what Guyana’s Oil and Gas bacchanal was where we are just bit players and sideshows in our oil opera. We cope with hangover and regret at what should have been, but was not even tried. With political leaders like these (and before), Guyana can be nothing but the eternal loser that it has always been, oil or no oil. And this brings me to this dreariest of places: what am I doing here? Why do I stick around among such people at the top, who offend sensibilities, assault national and personal dignity, desecrate every promise handed to this land? The problem might just be with me, which is unwanted epiphany.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

---

---