Infrastructure as post oil backup

Sep 06, 2024 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Guyana’s chief policymaker, Bharrat Jagdeo, operates with his own logic. His latest is that infrastructure gorging represents the best in forward thinking and preparing for a post-oil world in Guyana. Jagdeo fallback being pushed is that when the oil is depleted, infrastructure will prove its usefulness in many ways, with the manufacturing sector benefiting handsomely. It is wishful thinking at work, but with a conspicuous deficit which he sidesteps because there are negatives embedded, which darkens his fairytales. In Jagdeo’s head, it is highlighting the pluses, ignoring the drawbacks, and the rest will solve itself somehow.

The justification for hundreds of billions in several national budgets is that there will be a blueprint already in place, when the oil is finished. Surprisingly, Jagdeo acknowledges that ExxonMobil is pushing the daily production meter, which means that the initial 20-year lifespan for some projects/wells has been considerably reduced. Like massive GDP numbers, increased oil production has resulted in minimal differences in the lives of ordinary citizens. Guyanese observe the staggering rush of activity, read of the billions being spent, learn of how well the country is doing, but lament about why they are left behind, falling farther behind. It is mostly because of the oil wealth but, to repeat, the benefits at the citizen level are not coming to them. According to chief policymaker Jagdeo, Guyanese must sacrifice today, so they will be better poisoned to capitalize in a few years when oil production peaks. Meanwhile, those on the lower ends of the local wage ladder (in a rampaging economy) must find ways to get by. The richest citizens in the world per capita are forced to ask themselves that, if this is what it means to be that rich, since it has translated to nothing for them. For poor they are today, because they are fighting a losing battle with cost-of-living and living in a dignified manner. In other words, they can’t manage, survival is a daily trial of brutal proportions.

So, they are waiting, and now Jagdeo is all brightness about the significance of infrastructure when the oil is gone. Ordinary Guyanese have serious difficulty coping today, when they are the talk of the world. The challenge is how are they going to manage from now in this time of penniless individual barrenness to the time when Jagdeo’s infrastructure magic proves its worth? He says that the manufacturing sector will benefit, notwithstanding the fact that the same sector is struggling with a severe shortage of workers with the required skills. It is obvious that Jagdeo prefers dealing with fantasy than reality. When the new roads and bridges connect farm to markets, what about the money that should have been in the pockets of the poor Guyanese masses to help them buy not whatever they want, but what they need? It is the usual Jagdeo standard, where his economic formulas have one element only which appeals to other objectives that he is slick enough to leave unstated. It is a truism that for corruption to take wings, there must be spending. The more spending there is on infrastructure, the more the opportunities for the skullduggeries that Guyanese live with, pay for, and which torture them presently.

Aside from roads, Jagdeo spoke of the Wales gas-to-energy project and how his promised lower electricity rates will be a boon for the manufacturing sector. Give Guyanese the basis for that promise, that optimism, and there could be some support for it. Having been promised before, and burnt badly before, by Jagdeo with different costly projects, more Guyanese have had their fill of him and his clever concoctions always wrapped in secrecy. Two billion American dollars do not represent pocket money for Guyanese. They want substance now, they want money in hand now, they want to taste and savor the benefits of their oil wealth now. Post oil is years from now, and Guyanese must live with dignity now. Future probable infrastructure benefits do nothing for struggling citizens now. The oil is flowing now, and Guyanese should experience its positives today. Less in infrastructure and more for people is the wiser and better way. Of course, less infrastructure spending means less available to steal.

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Bharrat Jagdeo, chief policymaker, Editorial, Guyana, Infrastructure

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