Guyanese must stand up to and speak up about the plundering of their country

Aug 13, 2024 Letters

Dear Editor,

The number of people calling themselves proud Guyanese is quite significant.  It is summertime in the diaspora, meaning there will be many carnivals and festivals with Caribbean themes. Noticeably, there will be strong representation from Guyanese local and abroad wearing headwear, footwear, and other apparel with Guyana logos and the golden arrowhead displayed for all to see and festively shouting how they are proud to have roots in Guyana.

I honestly do not have a problem with people calling themselves proud Guyanese, but I do have a problem that of 800,000 Guyanese, only less than eight speak openly about the plundering of Guyana’s oil and resources by foreign companies that pay little or no tax nor provide adequate insurance protection that is required by law and industry standards. When you ask many Guyanese about oil and resources, they give you a blank stare, when you ask them about Burnham, Jagan, PNC, and PPP, then they all show how knowledgeable people they are.

Why is it like this? Are we just wired for this racially-divisive politics being designed by the politicians and the foreign exploiters for them to live the good life at the expense of ordinary Guyanese? Burnham and Jagan get all kinds of flak but these two leaders were key in our post-independence country. Guyana’s survival in this period depended on them, they were in a world where every country was either Communist or Western-influenced, and this internal conflict in many countries destabilised them so bad many countries went into full-scale civil wars that they have not fully recovered from. Some countries right in Guyana’s backyard in South and Central America, and even Jamaica, but Burnham and Jagan did their best to give Guyanese a home country.

Every country has bad times and dark days, Post-Independence Guyana’s dark days were the 1964 riots. If this continues to be on the minds of Guyanese when voting, let’s have an inquiry and hear from survivors or descendants of those who passed on to have some kind of racial reconciliation. Those who ran from Guyana in the 60’s and 70’s to the ABC countries and criticized Guyana should also tell the truth. While it is every person’s right to move to wherever they want, the diaspora should also say in the 60’s and 70’s all they got in the ABC was slave like low-paying jobs in those countries, white people didn’t serve them in restaurants, and their own African, Indian and Pakistani brothers and sisters whom they looked up to snubbed them as low castes. I never voted for Burnham, but Burnham must be credited for keeping the Guyana dollar high, this is the number one thing that keeps foreign exploiters away. Arthur Chung, Burnham, Jagan, or Hoyte would never have given away Guyana like these current sellouts, scampish, self-serving scoundrels masquerading as political leaders in Guyana. Because of these current and recent leaders, Guyana has been sold out and is on a path to complete destruction as they have brought in both the loud and silent foreign exploiters to plunder Guyana. Global partnership is the best way for Guyana to manage its resources to benefit both the citizens who own the resources, and the investors who bring investment and expertise. But when the “foreign investors”, and a minute few locals get everything and the citizens get pittance that can’t feed them, then this becomes unacceptable and unsustainable as currently happening in Guyana. Guyana now has the loud foreign exploiters like ExxonMobil and Omai as well as the silent Chinese companies that have a significant stake in Guyana’s oil, gold, bauxite, timber, manganese, wholesale/retail business, etc., and having Guyana on the belt and road initiative, building airports, roads, bridges and other infrastructure on debt.

Guyanese do not know the implications of this, calling it progress, if this is done by revenues, it is good, but when done on debt, then it is a handing over of Guyana to them if Guyana can’t repay the debts, like Sri Lanka and other countries. The Guyanese businesses who rent them to the Chinese for a few extra dollars should know they are giving up the market share of wholesale and retail shopping businesses they owned and controlled before for a few extra dollars, but this was inevitable since the government gives the foreigners duty-free concessions on import/export duties while GRA will run down Guyanese for taxes but would exempt the foreign companies. Guyanese who support the current “Foreign Investment”, policy note the following story.

Nigerian Authorities had to close down a Chinese Supermarket in the Capital City of Abuja because the Chinese running the market said the supermarket is only for Chinese and turned away the locals. I bet when this happens in Guyana nothing will be done, if not happening already. The VP boasts about hotels coming to Guyana creating jobs for Guyanese. The foreign exploiters don’t even want to rent Guyanese properties as they consider black and brown Guyanese unfit to live among them. This is just like the old colonial days I know, when the colonizers lived in the gated compounds, with security and comfortable living while Guyanese lived in logies without electricity and water. The foreign exploiters will plunder Guyana comfortably from these new hotels while Guyanese will do the cooking, cleaning, pet sitting, and pampering for them. When these foreign exploiters want something you have, they are very nice to you, when they don’t need you, they look at brown and black people with scorn and disdain.

This is the exact reason the previous coalition government got unseated because they lied to the people. They can blame GECOM all they want, but they failed the citizens by lying, and that’s why they are in opposition. The political parties boast of their manifestoes, which manifest into two manifestations, one as opposition and the other when in power. The VP holds weekly press conferences giving presentations that should be done by the minister of public works, housing, education, agriculture, health, etc., but doesn’t give one on natural resources or oil of which he is directly in charge of. Instead, he redirects queries to Vickram Bharrat, who as old people say is a shadow in dark night since he avoids the public. The VP’s economic philosophy is not to collect more revenues from oil or resources companies operating here through taxes or import/export duties, but to take on debt, saying Guyana is attractive to global lenders. Of course, everyone wants to lend the richest country per capita money, but not because the country has the capacity for debt means the government has to take debt while foregoing tax revenues. The modern form of colonization is to put a resource-rich country in debt and then take over. The VP lambastes and blames APNU for all the wrongs in Guyana, I don’t blame him, if APNU continues to accept the blame and lambasting then continue handing to them.

When The AFC leader proposed that a percentage of the oil revenue should go directly to citizens, the VP threw a tantrum, saying Guyanese are benefitting through government spending on infrastructure and other government programmes. How many citizens benefit from this continues to be a mystery. This is the perfect system for the exploiters, Guyana builds roads, airports, bridges, seaports, and power sources, which are used to land and transport the equipment and cargo to exploit the resources while simultaneously transporting the wealth of Guyana out. If these infrastructures are necessary, why should Guyana’s share and pay debt for them? When the resources are completely plundered and the foreign exploiters leave, these infrastructures will become white elephants, which Guyanese will have to maintain. Guyana is paying all the tolls, import/export duties, landing fees, and freight expenses for the foreign companies operating here, so who is benefitting from all the infrastructure expenditures? Guyanese don’t know what the agreements with foreign companies are, and when such questions are asked, those in charge go into tantrum mode.

A Vice News undercover video had showed a Chinese agent openly saying the Guyana Government is for sale. The Minister of State of the previous government flew to China on a state trip, to this day, no one knows what deal he made on behalf of Guyana since he made no address to anyone even as he is required by law to do so. The only thing Guyana’s MPs are good for is to separate Guyanese from their resource wealth. Guyana has the resources everyone wants, so why does Guyana continue to get nothing in its favour? Exxon wants no renegotiation, pay no taxes, no restrictions on flaring and unregulated dumping of produced water into the ocean, no meters at the oil pumps, no capping of interest rate, no ring-fencing, no penalties for questionable accounting transactions, no full liability insurance coverage, no petroleum commission, no declaration on new oil finds, and they get all of these things with not even a peep from those in leadership political, and other influential bodies that should be standing up for Guyana. When I see Guyanese suffer in their daily lives, I am tempted to look at them with scorn and disdain just like the foreign exploiters knowing their rightful share of Guyana’s wealth is within their reach, yet they fail to reach out and take it, instead, they reach out to beg. Guyanese are awake but are still blinded by the PNC colours in one eye and the PPP colours in the other. Glenn Lall is sacrificing everything for Guyanese to remove their political party blinders, to unite and truly live like the title “world’s richest citizens per capita”.

Maybe Lall should try sweet rice on Guyanese next.

Sincerely,

R. David

• Caribbean, country, Diaspora, Guyanese, R. David.