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Jun 17, 2018 News
“They (APNU+AFC officials) are just busy waiting on the dribble—the oil money. It is all they think of. They just have this obsession. But I am saying if we do not address these critical issues (regarding the oil sector), as well as the rest of the economy, Guyana will be worse off in the next decade.”
So said former President Bharrat Jagdeo at his most recent press conference.
Jagdeo responding to a question about Government’s preparedness to protect its people in the event of an oil spill, said that Government’s ill preparedness does not stop at environmental issues. He said it is across the board.
“This is not unique to what is happening in the sector. All the things that our government was supposed to do to protect us as a people, they have failed.”
Jagdeo said that after finding out that Guyana has oil, the government was supposed to negotiate a better contract. “They were supposed to get a contract that is better than the one we signed when we were trying to get ExxonMobil to explore. But ExxonMobil came out ahead in those negotiations, and that is putting it mildly.”
Jagdeo said that Government was supposed to have already set up a Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) but, “they failed that too, just like they failed with the Petroleum Commission. They also failed on local content and it’s the same pattern. They are failing to address issues relating to the environment and how to tackle a potential oil spill.”
Jagdeo said that everything is just haphazard and not in the interest of the Guyanese people.
The politician said that with these critical and unaddressed issues hanging over Guyana’s head, the nation can end up finding itself worse off with oil.
He said, “Read the experiences of many of these countries. Go to the assessment in Chad and Nigeria and Venezuela. Look at where Venezuela is today; you will recognize we will be worst off.”
This newspaper had reported that after 100 years of oil, the people of 20 African nations are no better off today.
This can be seen from a simple examination of the latest Human Development Index (HDI) report. (http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite/HDI)
The HDI was created to emphasise the point that people and their ability to live a better life should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country.
The African countries which have been flagged in the HDI report as places of low human development include Angola, Chad, Cameroon, Madagascar, Nigeria, Tanzania, Papua New Guinea, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Senegal, Ivory Coast, and the Republic of Congo.
Those African nations that managed to scrape medium development for its people after finding oil include Equatorial Guinea, Egypt, South Africa, Zambia, Kenya, Ghana, Sâo Tomé and Morocco.
On this basis, one can surely understand the notion that oil alone does not guarantee the “good life”. This very point was recently hammered home by head of the Institute of Applied Science and Technology (IAST), Professor Suresh Narine.
At the Guyana International Petroleum Business Summit (GIPEX) which was held from February 7 to February 9, Professor Narine asked, “Will Guyana simply shoot to the top of the HDI by simply becoming producers of oil? And for how long shall we maintain this good life, if we are able to attain it? Or will it only be over the lifetime of our reserves? ”
With ExxonMobil’s operations moving full steam ahead, Guyana like many African nations, is poised to become an oil producer by 2020.
LISTEN HOW JAGDEO WILL MAKE ALL GUYANESE RICH!!!
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