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Hamilton Green warns of ‘crumbs’ for citizens, pushes national unity to protect oil wealth
(Kaieteur News) – In a searing critique of the country’s current trajectory, former Prime Minister and Mayor Hamilton Green has warned that the dreams of independence are being dismantled by a leadership that lacks the “gravitas” to protect the nation’s vast natural wealth.
Speaking on the state of the nation 60 years after independence with journalist Antonio Dey, the veteran statesman described the current economic landscape as a “direct contradiction” of the aspirations held by the founding fathers. At the heart of his concern is the management of the country’s burgeoning oil and gold sectors, which he claims are being exploited by foreign interests while citizens receive a “small slice of the cake, if not crumbs from the table.”
Hamilton Green
Green expressed particular alarm over the extraction of gold and oil, suggesting that the current pace of extraction serves foreign operators more than future generations of Guyanese.
“We are allowing foreign people to extract our minerals or oil,” Green stated. “I contended that instead of giving out these massive gold reserves to foreigners… we should leave that gold. Gold don’t rust.” Invoking the words of former Trinidadian Prime Minister Eric Williams, who famously noted that “oil don’t spoil,” Green argued for a strategic slowdown. “Leave it for the younger generation to develop the technology and resources to harvest that gold for the benefit of our descendants.”
He also raised concerns regarding oversight, alleging a lack of transparency in the declaration of minerals. “There’s no evidence that when they declare 50 ounces, it is not 50 hundred ounces,” he remarked, describing the situation as a “scandal” and a “disgrace.” The former mayor did not mince words regarding the relationship between the central government and the city of Georgetown. He characterised the government’s recent attempts to take control of municipal streets and functions as a philosophical echo of history’s most notorious autocrats.
“It is a disease, a belief, an attitude that carries all of the world’s dictators, Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, that they need to control their capital and the main centers of human activity,” Green said.
He accused the administration of “starving” the city of funds to justify a takeover, describing the strategy as throwing a man overboard with his hands tied and then jumping in to “save” him for the sake of public optics.
Recalling his own tenure, Green detailed how previous initiatives, such as a proposed city lottery to raise funds and the creation of a trained “warden corps” to maintain the city, were allegedly dismantled or co-opted by the Central Government.
“Every initiative it took to give the city agency was rebuffed,” Green noted, reacting to the President’s recent assertions about managing Georgetown. “I suspect we wanted to work contracts with friends and put more money in the basket that is not filling, in spite of the billions we get every day.”
Despite his grim assessment of current governance, Green remains optimistic about the potential of the Guyanese people, provided there is a return to the motto of “One People, One Nation, One Destiny.”
He pointed to the legacy of Forbes Burnham, whom he noted introduced free education from kindergarten to university without the benefit of oil wealth. Green argued that today’s resources should be used to build “human infrastructure” rather than just “nice contracts for friends.”
“With fewer than a million people, there’s no reason why Guyanese could not be the happiest and the richest people on this earth,” Green said. “We are truly blessed… no floods, no hurricanes, no earthquakes. Our only inhibition is governance.” Green called for a return to the political cooperation once attempted by Burnham and Jagan to work out the “modalities of what nationhood ought to be.” “If we stand tall as a united people, we can face the vulgarities of life,” he concluded. “We can tell those who come to plunder our resources that we want not a small size, but a big slice of this cake we have.”
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Hammie, you need to stay quiet and keep to your corner. You should be the last one to talk of national unity when one of the last things you wanted to do in 1992 was to release the “dogs of war”.
Incidentally I haven’t forgotten those sea defence piles that you cut rendering them useless so they could be used to shore up the drains around your house.
Enjoy retirement and the pension granted to you by the government.