Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo has committed to working with the current administration to resolve the Guyana Venezuela Border dispute but has refused to work with the administration on areas of economic diplomacy.
“The government can expect full support on border matters… Where it comes to economic diplomacy we may not have a similar approach and we may have huge differences in terms of how we approach economic differences,” Jagdeo said.
He was at the time speaking to reporters at Freedom House, Robb Street on Tuesday. The Opposition Leader highlighted points of his recent meeting with President David Granger noting that while he was ill prepared for an in-depth meeting with the president he only committed to one of five items listed on an agenda produced by President Granger at the meeting.
“When I showed up there, the President welcomed me and gave me an agenda and I said I thought it was an initial courtesy meeting and he said I wrote you a letter… I did not receive the letter but …I will undertake to have the items on the agenda discussed at the level of the party.”
Jagdeo stated, “ I said, I did not need to consult on this issue and the PPP and the opposition will fully support all national efforts relating to preserving the integrity of our border and we will participate fully in any engagement in relation to the border. “
The former president believes that the government cannot speak of economic diplomacy when it speaks of Chinese, Indians and Russians “infiltrating the country” and “then expects to build relations with this new world.”
According to him, while BRIC countries are experiencing some economic problems he is optimistic that they will overcome same. “They will re-emerge in the future and become probably the biggest block in the world … in terms of economic dynamism although they had some problems recently. They are still a very important part of the world. As part of our rhetoric we need to create the environment to reach out to that part of the world. They are a huge source, particularly china, of development financing when development financing is drying up from the traditional sources. We have to keep that avenue open not only for development financing but for trade in goods and services…,” Jagdeo told the media.
Unless and until the government’s stance on foreign nationals change, then the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) will not cooperate. “Even when we had tensions in the past, we kept the doors open.” He made reference to Government’s announcement of its move to have Trinidad act as a backup fuel provider to Guyana though the PetroCaribe deal remains intact. He added that it seems that the government is still in “campaign mode” and said his party is prepared to work with government when that state of affairs expires. Government said that Guyana will not risk any delays with the delivery of fuel given that there have been issues with the on- time delivery of fuel under the arrangement with Venezuela.
“This environment does not lend itself to working together…What we should do is allow government six months to do all enquiries and take actions and when that period of campaign is done then move on,” Jagdeo said.