Hughes pushes for experts to help manage Guyana’s oil resources

Aug 20, 2024 News

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– says Guyanese are spectators as foreigners devour country’s wealth  

Kaieteur News – Amid the rapid development of the country’s oil sector with little or no oversight and expert’s technical management, Leader of the Alliance For Change Nigel Hughes said if this is not changed quickly Guyanese will be reduced to spectators as foreigners devour their wealth.

The AFC leader was at the time speaking at his party’s public meeting held in Linden Saturday night. Hughes calls for expert’s advice is in keeping with public advocacy for the establishment of the Petroleum Commission, which the Guyana Government said would slow down the development in the sector and also would not add anything new to what they are currently doing.

While highlighting that the government continues to boast about the construction of new hospitals, hotels and roads, Hughes pointed out that at about 50 percent of students are dropping out of school, which will result in them not having a decent job. As such he said, “…Are they  going to eat the roads, are they going to be able to afford the health services that exist , so you know what is going to happen we [Guyanese] are going to become spectators as the roads that are being built with our money is being used by foreigners.”

He continued: “We are less than a million people brothers and sisters, less than one million people; we don’t have the skills to manage that kind of wealth in a responsible way and when I say that it is not that we don’t have the capacity or we cannot generate the capacity but with that significant amount of money, you need professional help.”  The AFC leader then recalled the Government’s recent visit to several hinterland communities, where millions was invested. “Since we [AFC] have started these visits, the listening and the grounding tours, all of  a sudden four years after the PPP  [People Progressive Party/ Civic] is in office, they running to go by Monkey  Mountain and telling the people that they will be getting $40 million for this and $100 million for that,” Hughes said, while adding, “ I just want you to think about it, $40 million is less than an hour of income from oil, so when you run to tell me that you spending $40 million of my money, it is less than an hour of my money you taking and turning around to say that somehow we must be grateful to you [Government] .” Additionally, Hughes described Guyana’s wealth to be so much that, “we got money till we stupid. We will end up being stupid if we don’t manage that money.”

The AFC leader told the gathering that for years, since the country gained independence successive governments have failed to deliver to its citizens a better life. He said, “For the years this country has been independent, we have failed every single cycle to deliver to the people of this country a better life, every single cycle. We might have done better in some, in the last 32 years the People Progressive Party has been in office for 27 [years], therefore 84 percent of the years between 1992 to now they have been in office, elected. And so we have to seriously ask ourselves if the best we can do with all this wealth is to leave us in this struggling condition that we are in.”

Oil wealth

Noting that every citizen must benefit from the country’s oil wealth, Hughes pointed out that the situation on the ground at the moment is that only people connected to the oil and gas sector do. He further recalled, when the Government stated that Guyanese will benefit from the oil, through the ‘trickle down’ concept. Hughes described this to be, “such an offensive concept.” He explained, “Trickle down means that only the people who connected to oil and gas can get enough money and hopefully they are going to employ enough people and buy enough services, so that when the man that’s getting the contracts for the roads, or the man that’s getting the local content contract money, hopefully the maid, the taxi driver and wherever he buying his food from the restaurant will get some money.” In light of this, Hughes proposed and urged people to campaign for the oil money to be managed by experts, so each citizen can benefit from their profound wealth.

Back in March this year when Guyana appeared before the United Nations Human Rights Committee questions were raised about on whether the oil wealth was being used to ensure every citizen benefits.  The question was posed to Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira.  Committee member Rodrigo A. Carazo had noted that the Committee has seen in many parts of the world the extent natural resources have been pillaged and how natural wealth has been stripped to the bones and any wealth generated by the use of the natural resources has not been evenly distributed.  To this end he said, “The desire of this committee, the desire of the human rights architecture is to support member states including the Cooperative Republic of Guyana in processes intended to ensure the best and fairest of distribution of wealth derived from natural resources.”  Carazo explained that the even distribution of wealth promotes the well-being and human rights of all people.

In her response, Minister Teixeira said, “The issue of natural wealth being shared, we have reported here, the increase in allocations for health and education, the fact that in every Amerindian village in our society or Indigenous village in society, every rural village in our society, every municipality they are schools for children at the nursery, primary and in the regions which are large, we have secondary schools where children come (from) in the interiors where dormitory is provided.”

She explained that for a country of fewer than 800,000 people, coming from a poor background, significant changes have been made in terms of free education, free health care, subsidize housing, increases in the water availability in the interior and rural areas, and electricity. Guyana’s first trillion-dollar budget was passed in the National Assembly last month. The largest chunk of the $1.146 trillion budget was allocated to improving the country’s infrastructure: roads, bridges, sea defence and airstrips among others, with $221.4 billion allotted to this sector. For healthcare and education system, $129.8 billion and $135.2 billion were approved respectively.

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• AFC, citizens, expert advice, Nigel Hughes, oil, Wealth

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