Oil leadership-not so, not this way, not this time  

Dec 13, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths…

By GHK Lall 

Kaieteur News- Guyanese have the closeness of the guest of honor’s seat in how their rich oil inheritance is managed.  The have a few choices in response to what they read, they hear, they absorb.  They can rise from their seats, and say, Hear!  Hear!  Or they can sit silently, turn things over in their minds some more. Then they can deal with the fevered brawls in their heads regarding the leadership seen so far with this sacred oil patrimony.

It is a rich one also.  Being the citizen who has to chain the pit-bull, the luxury of choice, of fear, is not mine.  Fellow citizens have the privilege of looking on and deciding for themselves, how well, or poorly, I tied the dog.  The leash is short, and so are time and space to get this right.

Ringfence the oil projects.  No!  The old ones are already gone, though not tamper-resistant.  Just ringfence the upcoming ones, the seventh in the kettle, and those being lined behind it.  There it is: NO! Again. Renegotiate the 2016 Exxon contract, a treachery and calumny that stab every Guyanese in the back.  Not that again?  No!  What is not understood about N-O?  it has been said a million times.  No! No!  No!

Rise up and reach with the new Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) into the Stabroek Block and apply its terms to the rich and vast oil basin, of which this country knows so little, and gets so little.  No!  Not going there.  No way, not at all.

By now it should be seen that there is a pattern that is firmly, irreversibly, in place with the oil wealth of Guyana and Guyanese.  Any recommendation, any consideration that holds out a glimmer of some positive, some smidgen of what could be monetarily beneficial for Guyanese is snuffed out and stamped upon by Guyana’s oil managers.  It is where ringfencing the projects, renegotiating the contract [that was cursed] and reaching with the new PSA and insisting that it must apply to the Stabroek Block all represent dreadful diseases. Such must be avoided as though they are some destructive strain of coronavirus or syphilis.

Is this national oil leadership?  Or is the kind of oil partnership with Exxon that disembowels and decapitates the Guyanese to whom this wealth belong?  My position is well-known, and I push no one in any direction.  But all must know this.  Some day and in some way, my fellow citizens are going to have to decide whether they are proud oil owners or simply content to be bottom feeders.  Guyanese know about running to Trinidad and Toronto for needed economic relief, some peace of mind, a little pride in one’s existence.  History has returned with a vengeance, but on this occasion with a glistening difference.  Guyanese are no longer hand to mouth by anybody’s count.  Citizens of this country, therefore, should no longer be beggars.  But they are.  Now that’s an abomination, and I wonder what leaders and supporters have to say.  They are sure to have a deep bucket of excuses, rationales, and oil wisdoms about why NO to any change on how the oil is managed, NO on how its decided, and NO to any Guyanese First proposal.  NO! is now more than a pattern, more than a culture.  NO is now the national religion of Guyana’s oil stewards.  Stewards have a duty.  In this country, unfortunately, it is to say NO. Goddammit!  No is No, and it will only be so.

Now permit a simple citizen to move along the same road for a moment or two longer, with a pause for breath here and there.  Age has its pluses; newcomers are afforded that hospitality.

The latest is that rare situation when there is opportunity to consider windfall taxes on excess profits.  I heard what sounded like as though it came out of a bazaar first, and then this peculiarity involving the bizarre.  In the tandem of what resembled a neat political two-step, and out of the minds and the mouths of those sitting with the power to make such decisions, it was ‘not at this time.’  If not now, then when?  If not when richer and more advanced oil states have levied windfall taxes on their own companies, then will Guyana ever?

Perhaps the most revealing of all was the spectacle of those elected to the sacred duty of oil husbandry turning their backs on, and abandoning, their own family.  Their new love is Exxon.  In Guyanese vernacular, Exxon must be a hell of a ‘sweetmaan.’  When the men of the house (oil husbands) should do their all, with all their might, to protect the family, they yanked the blanket of a full parent company guarantee away from their children should the worst happen.  In the worst of times, US$2 billion may not be enough to replace a bra and a brief for those who lost everything.  Like I said, Exxon is the sweetmaan that must be made happy, since there is no knowing reactions should there be too much demanding, too much twisting open his hand and extracting something from it.

And so, it has been.  It is either that Guyanese oil managers are the wisest in the world.  Or they are too beholden to their Exxon sweetmaan.  So, there is no messing with him.  No to anything and everything that could mean something for all Guyanese.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of this newspaper.)

(Oil leadership-not so)

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• Fellow citizens, hard truths, Oil leadership-not so, Stabroek Block, vengeance

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