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Dec 04, 2022 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column
By GHK Lall
Kaieteur News – Many countries are going after excessively profitable oil companies to get a piece of those record profits so that they can offer some relief to their citizens struggling to cope with high prices and crushing cost of living realities. America and several countries in Europe have made announcements to this effect. These are not poor and highly underdeveloped countries, but rich and advanced societies making the levying of windfall taxes on oil companies official. Those who already have are working overtime, and thinking of ways, to get more from the runaway earnings of oil companies. I think it is a development that has much reasoning and fairness. When there is too much regulation, companies complain bitterly, and pushback vigorously, to get them rescinded (or gutted) because they are a blight on profits. By the same token, I would assert that when the other side of that coin (profits) is present, then the oil companies should be made to give some percentage out of their excess profits.
So why is Guyana not doing the same, especially when ExxonMobil and the Hess Corporation are riding high on the waves of oil profits, some from Guyana? What is Guyana doing about windfall taxes? Is the PPP Government going to do anything at all about squeezing windfall taxes from ExxonMobil and its partners?
It is embarrassing to examine a current priority, present fad, of the PPP Government. Right now, the PPP Government is chasing after visa free travel for Guyanese to Canada and Italy, possibly elsewhere. When the energies and interests of the Government of Guyana ought to be on managing this oil, and extracting the most out of it for us, it is pursuing visa free travel. Rather ominously, this brings back memories of the Burnham Era when Guyanese (particularly one demographic) were racing for all escape routes to get out of here.
Now, in a huge irony, the PPP Government is all energetic about visa free travel. Why would anyone want to be any place but here? Why, when all the prosperous action is right here? Our legitimate and untainted businesspeople can get visas on their merits, so there is no need for government to go an extra yard for them to obtain visa free travel. Guyanese with money to burn, whether from clean or corrupt sources, can take of their own visa arrangements, and don’t need any help from government. Also, I would assert that being a Guyanese today is no longer a torture, or a stigma, or a handicap. Instead of ‘not those darned Guyanese people again’, (which I had repeatedly seen for myself decades ago), it is now ‘welcome and do have a good holiday enjoying our many outlets for leisure or commerce.’ Some Guyanese have now achieved the vaunted status of Middle Eastern oil sheiks, albeit some lesser versions of them, but up there in the ranks of that exceptionally loaded clientele, nonetheless. Other countries wish to be in our shoes, and when that is out of reach, they settle for the next best thing. That is, take our money, and suffer our presences.
Considering this, my thinking is that the PPP Government should cease with this distraction about visa free travel for locals and focus on taxes. Guyanese can fend for themselves. While we are not talking of permanent resident visas, at this rate, this country could be empty of Guyanese who will go where doors are opened, and prospects more enticing than this oil rich country of theirs. I put in the public domain something for my fellow Guyanese to chew on: I am pondering if this flurry of visa free activity is intended to transform this ‘One Guyana’ into the ‘One Guyana’ of one kind of people only left behind. Meaning that those marginalized, ostracized, victimized, and demonized are being given every nuanced encouragement to sail out of the Guyana sun, and into North American and European sunsets. While England is a sort of closed shop, Canada has a lot of space and opportunity for Guyanese to disappear; and there is always that still more alluring border crossing into the land of milk and honey. Demographic thorns in the sides and behinds could be gone.
I am thinking that this is one of the reasons why the PPP Government has almost zero interest in standing tall before Exxon, and twist its people’s arms for a piece of their excess profits. Seeing that no taxes are collected, a little 10% windfall taxes could keep the critics quiet. Guyanese need money urgently; they don’t need visa free travel as much. Guyanese need the President to stop coming up with these red herrings; they need to see green US dollars. Guyanese need the President to desist with his whitewashes and white rabbits; they need to be in the black with their bank books and balance sheets. Somebody must put a stop to these farces now. The Brits and the Canadians get their business pacts with Guyana. With Italy targeted for visa free travel, is ENI next in line to come here and also gouge Guyana?
Jan 28, 2025
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