A civil society alliance is needed

Apr 19, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

---

Kaieteur News – When it comes to the renegotiation of the highly flawed oil agreement, Guyanese should no longer look towards either the government or the Opposition. Both have made it quite clear that there will be no renegotiation of the agreement.
This constitutes a betrayal of the public interest. For if there is any agreement which requires renegotiation it is the Production Sharing Agreement entered into between the oil companies and the government of Guyana.
The PNC/R has a new leadership but it is caught in a dilemma. For it to call for renegotiation can be interpreted as opposing this very agreement which was signed under the APNU+AFC government of which the PNC/R was the dominant partner.
Statements emanating from the PNC/R indicate that it favours clawing back greater benefits from the oil companies rather than outright renegotiation. As we have seen, however, this is easier said than done and so far the PPP/C has been unable to recoup any significant benefits from the oil companies.
The PPP/C government has taken issue with the oil agreements. But it has ruled out completely renegotiation. Hiding behind the excuse of the sanctity of agreements, the government says that future agreements will have to be different.
But there are two main obstacles in this path. The first is that Exxon will most likely buy-in to the other oil blocks which have been given out by the government. The present agreement allows them to do so and would subject the development of these blocks to the same terms as the Stabroek Block. The second obstacle is that the Exxon Production Sharing Agreement will act as a powerful precedent for future terms.
Guyanese, therefore, cannot look towards the political parties for obtaining a better deal. And without a better deal, the idea of wealth filtering down to the people will remain a mirage. It is simply not going to happen with two percent royalties and 12.5 percent profit sharing.
Guyanese are also going to be short-changed by a government which is bent on going on a spending spree. The small oil revenues are going to quickly fretted away by the present government. Already it appears to be plucking projects out of thin air and undertaking them without any feasibility studies that are specific to those projects.
The parliamentary Opposition can do much more to call the government to account about these projects which are being touted – the gas-to-shore project, the hydroelectric project, the construction of the new four-lane highways, the development of an airport in Berbice and the erection of a new stadium in the same county.
The basic needs of the people should first be attended to before any attempt is made to go on a wild spending spree on public infrastructure. Education remains in a mess with almost half of our students still failing school-leaving examinations. Half of our primary school children are failing the examination which grants them entry into secondary school.
The country’s health system is in serious crisis. The government is now only able to offer a cap of $600,000 per persons for dialysis treatment. Guyana, an oil producing country, should have been able to provide free dialysis at public institutions rather than having persons with renal failure being forced to go to private clinics.
It is only now that the government is paying for radiotherapy for cancer patients. But by now there should have been a full-fledged public oncology hospital which would attend to all the needs of cancer patients. Why should the government be paying private institutions to provide services to cancer patients?
These needs, in both education and health, should have long been fully met by the country’s public health and education systems. But they are not and it is private medical services providers who are profiteering off of the sickness of the Guyanese people. If you do not have significant savings or relatives who will finance your treatment, pray to the Creator that you do not become seriously ill in Guyana.
Instead of the government focusing on infrastructure, it should devote more of the oil revenues to fixing the decrepit education and health systems. But the government will ignore such demands because it can afford to do so. And the Opposition is in shambles, facing a credibility crisis and is on the same page as the government when it comes to the oil contracts.
The suffering Guyanese people in the meantime cannot look to either the government or the Opposition. As such, the only option is for the weak civil society to muster some effort to come together as a pressure group to press for a renegotiation of the Production Sharing Agreement.
There are elements of civil society who have concerns over the environmental aspects of oil exploration and production. There are also other groups which are interested in greater transparency and accountability. Each of these groups by themselves will be ineffective in forcing change as we have seen with the failure to audit US$9B in expenses and claims.
Everyone, however, likes to be a king and queen in their own hamlet, rather than come together and fight for the overall kingdom. But if all of these groups come together on a common platform to press for greater safeguards and accountability, they may be able to initiate a process that would allow for renegotiation.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

---

---