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Oil Experts

Aug 25, 2024 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Alliance For Change (AFC) leader, Nigel Hughes, said that unless there is a reversal of the little to no oversight in the crucial oil sector, Guyanese could be reduced to spectators while foreigners devour their wealth.  We weigh this and wonder whether matters have not proceeded too far already for a turnaround to take hold.  Guyana did not have the skills, nor has it made a concerted effort to embark on a start to build capacity, and there is one national oil leader who still insists that there is no urgency, for a Petroleum Commission.  As the bitter experience of Middle East and larger African countries have informed us, when political hacks are the main operators around great national oil wealth, then expect calamity.  According to Hughes, with that amount of money coming from oil, it is common sense to get professional assistance.  When knowledge is limited, skills in short supply, and capacity low, then to keep pretending that all is well, and all is under good management, is an exercise in gross self-deception.

The PPP/C Government likes to remind all who would listen of the many miles of roads it has built and the hospitals that it has refurbished or newly put on the local map.  Though it has been often said, its repetition is worth the effort: whether a meter of road or a hundred kilometers, they are of no value to a hungry family.  There is common ground with Mr. Hughes on that one.  Political platitudes from political leaders are of limited utility to a mother who cannot afford the healthcare services that are springing up all over.  When political appointees and party flunkeys pushed into positions that are beyond their competence, those are rank injustices to the people.  Guyana needs qualified oil experts.

National leaders in the ruling party are determined not to have a Petroleum Commission manned by reliable, trustworthy people who have earned their spurs in the oilfields around the world.  Whenever this newspaper mentions a name, those with proven prowess and known integrity, the PPP/C Government dismisses them and circles its wagons.  Like the operation of the network of tender boards across Guyana and contract awards, like the chronic secrecies surrounding the Black Hole that is sugar, the same standards have come to characterize what goes on in the growing oil sector of Guyana.  The latest example of this is that this government has spent over a half billion US dollars on the Wales Gas-to-Shore project since 2022, and documents for this project are shrouded in secrecy.  According to the chiefs around the oil that is not the business of Guyanese, the documents run to over a thousand pages, and that alone is enough to hide them.  A vibrant Petroleum Commission with pedigreed oil experts in its structure could go a long way in separating politicians from the patrimony of the people.  When politicians of questionable repute, of many failed projects, are allowed to get too close to the richest development in Guyana’s history, then not much could be expected.  Quite frankly, it is up in the air relative to whether they can deliver with any degree of reliability and integrity what is in the interests of the people.  A cohort of oil experts cuts through this flab, what is now a standing farce in Guyana.  Venal politicians and their craven cast of aiders and abettors around this national wealth are a tragedy already on the move.  We say it sharply and strongly: politicians must be separated from this oil wealth, or else it will go down the same sorry route of the other abundant natural resources gifts that have been this country’s blessings.

One of the defining characteristics of successive PPP/C Government is its unwavering commitment to concealing the big issues of the nation.  Mineral contracts, complete audit reports, studies and other reviews have all been saturated with secrecy.  Trusted oil experts operating in a transparent environment and answerable to Guyanese could change all of that overnight.  We need them, we must have them, and they must be had now.  Every day lost is going to be costly, considering the ongoing skullduggeries that are now a second skin to government and leaders.

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