Latest update June 17th, 2026 12:40 AM
What about us?
Kaieteur News – First it was the Americans and Chinese, as present in the ExxonMobil-spearheaded oil consortium. Then, it was the Dutch company SBM, despite it checkered history with bribery. Now, it is the Japanese and Danes, and before them the British (Tullow) and the Spanish (Repsol). Every Tom, Dick, and Harry company coming here and benefiting from this nation’s oil wealth. They don’t come alone, but with their friends all eager to partake of the profitable Guyana oil prize. We point to American Airlines, British Airways, and assorted hoteliers and downstream operators, some from the CARICOM region, and a slew of them from the more distant north. In the fewest words: anybody and everybody making a killing from Guyana’s oil riches.
The questions we put before the PPP/C Government, President Ali, and Vice President Jagdeo are the simplest of no brainers. What happened to the wellbeing of the Guyanese people, all of them, not just the selected rich ones? Do they not know of prosperity, of the use and value of the money that they ought to be getting from their oil? Is this a case in Guyanese lingo of goat biting out our braincells? Or of cat eating the dinner of the Guyanese people, especially the multitude of poor ones? Or is this a situation where leaders in the PPP/C Government conspire and concoct with foreign oil companies to feed the cats our dinner?
The world is coming here and getting a sweet slice, a rich piece, of Guyana’s oil action. But Guyanese living right here, can’t get anything, not even a percent of a percent, of what the foreigners dream about grabbing from Guyana, and then get it. Already wealthy Guyanese business interests, with tight connections to the PPP/C Government and cozy relationships with its two-headed leadership arrangement, have positioned themselves to get the biggest share out of whatever part of the oil wealth flows to locals. Through joint ventures with foreign companies for downstream oil business, or numerous billion dollar gifts (tax concessions, public works contracts, and so forth) from the PPP/C Government, Guyana’s richest grow richer still. These comparatively few in Guyana’s population thrive under a cascade of flourishing deals that is the envy of those locked out of the lush business dealings.
Meanwhile, the mass of citizens, the poor, the working class, the man-in-the-street, the distressed and depressed, and others failing to cope, are left to fight each other in the scramble to get a drop or two of the financial trickles that are left for them. It may be a bit of an exaggeration, but for every million in American dollars that the foreigners and handful of insider locals make, the ordinary Guyanese has to be content with a local dollar, and that is if or she is lucky, or among those favored by the PPP/C Government.
All things considered, the discovery of billions of barrels of oil equivalents has inflicted a great injury on poor Guyanese. It filled them with feelings of hope, with the belief that their day has come, and that, finally, they are now going to make it, stand proudly on their own feet. The reality is that their hopes have been shattered by compromised and crooked Politicians, leaving many with deep bitterness and growing frustrations. The oil instilled hope and then it vanished. As more Guyanese come to grips with the devious and deceptive nature of their leaders, with perceptions of how much they are in the pockets of ExxonMobil and others, and at their back and call, their once bright hopes now disappear.
This is compounded by the continuing stream of news articles of how much foreign companies from a variety of countries are benefiting from our oil. The more the foreigners make, the less Guyanese get, and when more of these foreigners get rich from our oil wealth, the fewer is the number of Guyanese who get anything from this oil.
Guyanese are not anti-foreign, nor are we anti-anybody. It is nothing but an injustice that all could come here and prosper, while we are reduced to bystanders and beggars for what is ours. How can this be right? How can any Leader, any Government, be for something like this?
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