–over spending on ensuring territorial integrity

MINISTER of Foreign Affairs, Mr Carl Greenidge had cause to let the House know on Thursday that defending Guyana’s territorial integrity is serious business, and should not be taken lightly.

“This has been a costly process, and we are looking at a process to resolve the question of the arbitral award,” he said.
“We need to find out whether the court had acted improperly, or in a manner not in keeping with the law when they crafted the first arbitral award,” the former finance minister in a previous administration told his parliamentary colleagues on Thursday, as the customary budgetary debates entered its third day.

His observation comes in the wake of a query from Opposition Chief Whip, Ms. Gail Teixeira as to why the government needed to budget a whopping $800M to spend on just accommodation and travel for 2018.
But as he painstakingly explained for the benefit of everyone in the House, much to the amusement of the members of the parliamentary opposition, most of the foreign ministry’s budgetary allocation is usually spent on travel, since most of their meetings are held in the US and further afield.

“We cannot look at how expensive it was and say we cannot afford it, because we cannot say we can’t afford to defend our territory,” Minister Greenidge said, adding: “We have, at any one time, 10 to 14 officers working in the negotiating team.” Needless to say, his explanation did not wash with the opposition, as all it succeeded in doing was eliciting a loud and sustained round of good-humoured heckling.

Seasoned campaigner that he is, Minister Greenidge took it in his stride, and got on with the business at hand, saying that even members of the Parliamentary Opposition were a part of the consultations.
“We had all the support we have requested from the opposite benches, even as we tried to explain to the UN SG that this is a costly exercise for Guyana,” he said.

He went on to say that it is in the interest of keeping costs down that the government is relying on a promise made by both former UN Secretary-General, Mr Ban Ki-moon and his successor, Mr António Guterres to make a final decision on the matter at the end of this year.
But, in the interim, he said, they have been trying to keep active on the international front by building strong ties with countries that may have similar territorial problems.
He also drew reference to Guyana’s establishment recently of an embassy in Geneva, Switzerland, which, since its opening in early 2016, has begun to show some promise.

“The Guyanese Ambassador to Switzerland was recently called up to be the spokesperson of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group,” Minister Greenidge said, adding: “This is a stage that puts you in a favourable position to build support, since it ensures that countries have respect for our competence.”

As he assured his parliamentary colleagues, the government is committed to ensuring that Guyana is represented effectively, as there’s a mission to build the image of the country.
One of the image-building projects of which he spoke is the proposed establishment of an embassy in the Brazilian capital, Brasilia.

He also mentioned in passing, amidst another round of sustained heckling, a proposed meeting shortly between a high-level delegation from Guyana and Norwegian diplomat, Mr Dag Halvor Nylander, who has been appointed by the UN Secretary-General to arbitrate on his behalf in the ongoing border controversy between Guyana and Venezuela.

That meeting, he said, will take place in Antigua and Barbuda, and see a battery of international lawyers as well as local officials negotiating on Guyana’s behalf.
He said that while the expection that the meeting will be informal, it is all part and parcel of the new round of the Good Offices Process as initiated by Secretary-General Ban before he demitted office in December 2016.

The Good Offices Process, on which Guyana has relied since 2009 to settle the controversy with Venezuela,is expected to conclude in one year and, according to both Ban and Guterres, if no significant progress is made by the end of the year, the matter will be referred to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The controversy itself is an allegation by Venezuela that the 1899 Arbitrary Award is null and void. For over 50 years, the controversy has been ongoing between the two countries, since Venezuela continues its attempt to claim two-thirds of Guyana’s territory.