–into a veritable theatre of gloom and doom

Dear Editor,
I VISITED Moray House on Wednesday evening with the hope of leaving the presentations on oil and gas more informed and better armed with the facts related to this new industry in Guyana. What I witnessed, at least from the presentation made by social activist Melinda Janki, was an epic account of impending doom for Guyana.

But can this, which is beginning to appear like a well-coordinated campaign against Guyana’s development, be taken seriously?

Let me be clear: As a Guyanese, I too want what is best for the country. While I believe that the oil deal with ExxonMobil was the best we could’ve gotten at the time, I still think that going forward, now that we know what is offshore, we should get much more favourable terms. But to say that Guyana will not gain at all from oil production, as Ms. Janki stated at Moray House without providing a shred of evidence, is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. The IMF and World Bank have cited figures amounting to around of US$370M per year for Guyana when production begins. This works out to just over one million US dollars per day.

Reports in the media, quotes Public Infrastructure Minister David Patterson as outlining a number of infrastructural projects in the pipeline to be funded by these revenues. Whether these materialise under the coalition government or a next administration in the future is a matter for Guyanese and the politicians we elect. It will not be for lack of resources.

Ms. Janki also upped the ante by claiming that Guyana will be saddled with untold debt which would be incurred from liability associated with damages to Caribbean islands, affected by a potential oil spill off the country’s coast. She provided no study or data to support this as a real probability. She implied that a number of laws may have been broken by the governments responsible for the oil contract with Exxon, but when directly asked to say which laws, by a vigilant gentleman in attendance, Ms. Janki was unable to list a single one.

Thanks to the somewhat rational presentations from Colin Constantine and Tarron Khemraj, the evening was not an entire waste of time. They outlined very real pitfalls and laid out some options for how Guyana could avoid them.

Hopefully, we can get more of these reasoned discussions and less of the gloom and doom, since I do not believe sensational warnings help us as a country in any way.
Regards
Clement Smith