Needed, strong Guyanese leaders now! PPP, PNC have sold out to Exxon – any takers?

Jun 22, 2023 Letters

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Dear Editor,

At the end of the day, Guyana must have a functioning government, since no government at all results in chaos. Unless a viable political party other than the current ones emerges, Guyanese will have “Hobson’s Choice” for elections, meaning any of the current parties chosen will be a bad choice, so they will try to choose the lesser of the bad as none will bring good.

We know winners of democratic elections don’t guarantee they will be democratically functioning governments.  So we have to live with the kind of democracy we have, being whoever wins the elections will form the government with unrestricted power even if it’s a one-seat majority.  This can currently be seen whenever the opposition introduces motions in parliament on important issues for the country.  The speaker of the house shuts them down, so how much can we blame the opposition?

We can see all around us the results of the MPs giving away Guyanese rightful wealth in the most shameful, disrespectful, and sickening manner, while the poor gets thrown in the gutter, literally, as the new initiative from the government is to make the richest citizens per population in the world clean drains for a pittance to survive. Guyanese shouldn’t have stayed home from voting as a protest against the government, since a weaker electorate would create a weaker government, a better protest would have been citizens walking with Ray Daggers and Glenn Lall.

Guyana needs strong leaders now more than ever, but who will respond for Guyana?  Make no mistake, many of the people currently in state, regional, and local governments, state entities, police, and army higher ranks were very strong, decent, honest people with brilliant ideas who even cared about the people around them.  Although a few retained their dignity, most working in government institutions have changed like snakes changing skins and speaking with forked tongues.

Dr. Ashni Singh, during his scholar days, had brilliance radiating from him on his financial expertise, but since in government, he has been transformed into a dwarfed shadow of his former self, likewise Bharrat Jagdeo and many others, as if government is a cult where one must shed their dignity and pledge allegiance to the cult to get in. Even with the current lop-sided oil, mining and timber contracts against Guyana, strong government leadership can still salvage so much for Guyanese to uplift their current standard of living, like (1) Labour Laws.  The current Labour laws in Guyana protect Guyanese workers from exploitation, enforcing this will ensure Guyanese workers make more money; (2) Environmental Laws, foreign and local entities continue the blatant violation of these environmental laws, the amount of fines and penalties Guyana can recover for these violations will be unprecedented; (3) insurance, companies can be penalized for not having adequate insurance for their operations; (4) capping and monitoring interest and borrowing costs on loans incurred by Guyana; (5)monitoring companies for accurate production reporting, as countries in Africa where the officials took bribes and allowed oil and resource companies to grossly understate their production data.  So, although they had good rates of taxes, royalties and profit sharing, these were paid to African countries on smaller reported production amount, while the foreign companies corrupted officials, and  walked away with the hog of the wealth; (6) strong Local Content Legislation should ensure any product or labour than can be provided by Guyanese must be used by oil and resource companies, fines and penalties should be imposed on companies for violations; (7) auditing of all bills and expenses to Guyana; (8) assemble a special team to tackle corruption; (9) update and enforce anti-bribery laws to catch foreign bribers and local bribe takers in one net, countries on the brink of collapse were saved by this, notably Singapore and Iceland; (10) TAXES, the big one, as this will balance out lop-sided contracts to Guyana, tax waivers and exemptions are discretionary benefits given to companies as good faith gestures by governments.  These exemptions and waivers are not part of contracts, so sanctity of contract does not apply to them, and governments who granted these or new governments can rescind and revoke these exemptions and waivers at any time as tax policies are the sanctity of countries and not foreign corporations.

When Australia, the UK, the US, India, and Canada imposed windfall taxes on oil companies, Exxon and other oil companies did not unleash their army of lawyers to fight this, since they fully well know all countries have the right to amend their tax laws as they please as the sanctity of oil contracts do not include a country’s tax policy. Since the laws of those countries came from the Crown of England, Guyana’s laws also originated from there, meaning when it comes to tax policies Guyana can impose taxes on oil companies just like those countries. Guyana’s current leaders and MPs are not up to these tasks listed.

The President at his community outreaches openly states, don’t ask him questions other than why he is there, meaning no questions about Exxon, oil, or resource wealth. Although credit must be given to him for meeting citizens personally, He resigns himself to do the job of the RDC, the birth and land registry offices helping people with birth certificates, land titles, bridges, drainage, playgrounds, and road repairs, instead of being at negotiations with world leaders from a strong position as everyone wants Guyana to have. The VP is now Exxon’s personal orchestra playing whatever symphony or song Exxon requests. Oil production started in 2019, and now Norton is promising to call Exxon in 2025 to amend the oil contract if people vote for him. Ramjattan says those who don’t like his incompetence should form a political party and contest elections. The Attorney General whose job responsibilities is to protect Guyana is actually fighting his own purpose in appealing the full cover insurance case. To save Guyana and Guyanese, Guyana Now Needs Strong Leaders to stand up, more than ever, but who will respond and do so? I don’t know.

Sincerely,

R. David

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• Choice, Exxon, Guyanese, Hobson's, PNC, PPP

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