LAST week Mr. Stephen Greenlee, President of ExxonMobil Exploration Company, gave President David Granger the company’s commitment to building local capacity. This intent was made known to the President during his visit to attend the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in New York, and was later reiterated to Guyanese journalists who were covering the UN events.

The projection that has been made by ExxonMobil for the involvement of Guyanese in 90 percent of its production activities when it becomes operational in 2020 needs to be examined and a plan be put in place to reap the benefits. Guyana has less than three years to prepare for this.
Achievement of the 2020 goal will require strong and structural leadership coming from the national level that recognises and appreciates the importance of the involvement of education and training institutions.  These institutions will be required to empower citizens with the necessary knowledge and skills to not only be eligible for opportunities available, but also to be able to perform at optimum.

It need not be overlooked however, that the fruition of the aforesaid would require a rethinking of the education curriculum, public/non-governmental partnership to provide requisite training and education, and laws to ensure Guyanese labour participates and is protected and respected.

While oil and gas will be extracted during the period when the state is pursuing development within the context of a ‘green’ economy and fossil fuel could be seen as a threat to this and therefore of concern, the proceeds from this extractive sector could be used for strengthening the pillars upon which a ‘green’ economy is built.

For instance, in addition to ensuring, through strong legislation and other reinforcement measures to safeguard the environment, in the extracting of oil some of its revenues can be channelled to strengthening our sea defences through increased mangroves cultivation. In the agriculture sector, which is important to the ‘green’ economy, programmes need to be aggressively pursued to ensure that its contribution to human development and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) does not decline.

Experience can be drawn from Trinidad and Tobago, a sister CARICOM country, where agriculture has suffered a decline since less emphasis was placed on this sector in preference to oil and gas. The production decline in this sector has seen the loss of employment and economic opportunities, an increase that country’s food-importation bill and extraction of scarce foreign resources. We must seek to learn from and avoid similar pitfalls.

Opportunities for oil and gas must not come at the expense of opportunities for other sectors, even though it is important not to be caught ill-prepared when it kicks off.  The training of Guyanese ought not to only be the responsibility of the state and government. Exxon has a corporate responsibility to make significant contributions in preparing the skills base required in realising an operation that performs at its optimum.

Building the capacity of our environment by educating the wider communities, outside of the oil-and-gas workforce, to equip them with knowledge to identify, avoid, and report threats that may flow from this sector is critical. For instance, if an oil spill occurs, whatever the size, what ought to be the measures applied from recognition to reporting to clean-up and other attendant consequences.

Citizens will look forward to direct and indirect opportunities from the sector, such as in the form of supply of goods and services, improvement in purchasing power and overall quality of life. The expectations will also be that revenue from the sector can see reduction in blackouts, improved services in public institutions such as education and health, better roads, drainage, irrigation and sanitation. The retirees community will too hold hope that pensions would increase commensurate with cost-of-living adjustment, and there will be needs-based financial adjustment in social services such as water, electricity and health care and state-run elderly and convalescent homes.

The truth is every demographic is hoping to benefit from oil and gas, and those who cannot derive direct benefits through employment and economic opportunities, look forward to benefit indirectly. Recognition of the aforesaid expectations and the ability to meet them or otherwise are twinned and where importance is given to their recognition, systems could be but in place to address and manage same.