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Jagdeo on Suriname
…Editorial
Kaieteur News- True to form, Guyana’s chief oil policymaker had less than a positive reaction to Suriname’s oil royalty announcement that came on that country’s Independence Day. Always sensitive to what reduces him to the ranks of lost leaders, he rushed to poke holes in what the Surinamese President, Chandrikapersad Santokhi offered to all of that country’s citizens. The US$750 for every citizen of Suriname, along with its 7% annual interest rate payment doesn’t compare to what the PPP/C Government is doing for Guyanese. We check to see how Guyana stands when matched against Suriname. Whatever the result, it would prove Jagdeo to be right, or otherwise engaging in one of his now usual six for nine.
Suriname just found oil and has not yet produced any oil, but already inspiring provisions are being set in place for all citizens of that former Dutch colony. Guyana is producing 650,000 barrels of oil daily presently, and has already shipped out 500 million barrels since oil first started to flow from under the sea over four years ago. With oil numbers like those, and with oil prices where they are, all Guyanese should be doing very well, enjoying a better than average standard of living. With oil revenues flowing into Guyana, albeit at gangster levels from a vile contract, the national government is well-equipped to do better for all Guyanese.
Instead of that, Jagdeo’s PPP/C Government has chosen to prioritize sharing the oil wealth with its inner circle, and a small crowd of sycophants. Guyanese have received a paltry $25,000 (slightly over a hundred US$), and some minimal subsidies when it pleases leaders to do so. The greatest portion of budgets have gone to building infrastructure (hundreds of billions) while Guyanese are punishing daily from hunger and failing to meet their other basic needs. This is the history of the current 4-year-old PPP/C Government, with Vice President Jagdeo, the official national oil leader and, as many are ready to contend, the de facto national leader. It took four plus years of criticisms and condemnations for Jagdeo’s PPP/C Government to announce a cash grant of $100,000 for Guyanese who attained the age of 18 when this year began. In Suriname, it is every single citizen who stands to collect US$750 (GY$150,000) later. Here it was first an undefined “household” to receive $200,000, then all those 18 and over on January 1, 2024. Indeed, the cash in Guyana is in the present, but even then, hundreds of thousands of Guyanese are still left out.
Jagdeo is right to say that Guyana’s $100,000 cash grant announcement is money in the pockets of many Guyanese today. But he has the power of three oil projects going like a rocket, and increased daily production behind him. Suriname is set to produce oil four years from today, but already all of its citizens have a return committed to when that happens. Suriname’s Santokhi has no oil production going for him now, but has already roped in all of his people, as part of a grand vision. Jagdeo rides on the crests of an oil wave, and all he has done is search for ways to use the people’s oil wealth to wrap a rope around their necks. Surinamese have something to look forward to, while Guyanese own richly producing oil fields but look at Jagdeo and fear about what he is going to come up with next.
For sure, what President Santokhi has put before his citizens is a promissory note, as Jagdeo correctly pointed out. But let no one ever forget that it is the same Bharrat Jagdeo who promised to renegotiate the obscene ExxonMobil oil contract signed by the APNU+AFC Coalition. Then what did he do once back in power, but forget and/or deny what he swore to do, and walked back on his oath. This is the type of clever and shifty national political leader with whom Guyanese live. Yet, this is the man that looks at what Suriname’s Santokhi is staking his leadership on, and says that it does not compare to what the PPP/C Government is doing here. Jagdeo’s leadership record is of next to nothing, yet he loudly markets that he has done everything.
(Jagdeo on Suriname)
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