By Imran Khan

Director of Public Information
THE history of Guyana has many themes, among them the lack of control our people have had to chart our own course.

Before independence, grey men in bowler hats in grey London offices thousands of miles away signed dry documents that sealed a people’s fate. Even before then, Guiana was seen as a mere bauble to be traded between European nations as part of treaties to end their wars.

And after our hard-fought independence, the new Guyana was never truly in control for any sustained period, as the Cold War helped frustrate the dream of a post-colonial utopia. An indebted, damaged economy meant years under the supervision of the International Monetary Fund with draconian edicts over how money could be spent. Later, as we broke free from that crippling debt, drug lords were allowed and facilitated to create a near narco-state that saw hundreds of our people killed and the country brought to virtual anarchy and labelled a pariah state.

This decades-long lack of control as a country has trickled down to how many citizens view their own lives and is a major factor why so many hundreds of thousands took matters into their own hands and departed these shores to seek opportunities for themselves and their children overseas. While understandable, the cumulative effect of this unprecedented migration has been a massive brain drain that has weakened our institutions and governance and social structures.

Since 2015, the coalition government has worked towards restoring order when it comes to crime, corruption and the management of the economy, even as it clears up the mistaken projects of the Jagdeo years, including the ill-advised Skeldon Sugar Factory, the burdensome Berbice River Bridge and the Marriott Hotel – all still being subsidized by taxpayers. The new GRA head, Godfrey Statia, has made impressive headway to coral serial tax evasion by so many in the private sector who refuse to shoulder their share of the social burden. But the government remains cash-strapped and unable, as yet, to execute the kinds of transformative infrastructure and human development projects the country and its people so desperately need.

All of this has the potential to change, come 2020, with the beginning of oil production by ExxonMobil in its Stabroek Block. The numbers are staggering and hard for us to get our heads around. If all goes to plan, by 2025 Guyana could be producing up to 700,000 barrels of oil per day. This would rank us the highest producer per capita in the world. By even the most modest calculations, Guyana will receive multiple billion dollars in revenue that would mean those transformative projects this country has always desired will become affordable and achievable. Top quality health care and education are within our grasp.
It is an unlikely marriage: a giant American conglomerate that roams the world in search of energy, joining forces with one of the smallest, underdeveloped countries in the Western Hemisphere. And there are fears that we will be recolonised, this time by a multi-national and, by extension, the United States – like some Central American banana republic. Indeed, should we really be tying bundle with these folks, given previous experiences? It is a question one should not dismiss, as ExxonMobil has said, it will be here for decades to come, and its production will contribute within a few years, the lion’s share of the country’s revenue.

It was also a question that the Ghanaian revolutionary and leader, Kwame Nkrumah, grappled with in his 1965 book “Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of imperialism”. He noted that “non-aligned countries could cooperate with capitalist and socialist countries as long as investment is in accordance with a national plan drawn up by the State with its own interests in mind…. The issue is not what return the foreign investor receives on his investments. He may in fact do better for himself if he invests in a non-aligned country than if he invests in a neo-colonial one. The question is one of power….The struggle against neo-colonialism is not aimed at excluding the capital of the developed world from operating in less developed countries. It is aimed at preventing the financial power of the developed countries being used in such a way as to impoverish the less developed.”

The government seems keenly aware of these dangers. The two pillars of its approach will be the establishment of the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) and the Green State Development Strategy (GSDS). The proposed legislation for the SWF is expected to be passed before the end of the year after what will be full and open discussion, and the fund set up in time for First Oil in early 2020.

Critics complain that it is taking too long, but there are many issues to consider, including avoiding the resource curse– how much to spend now on development and how much to save for the ultimate goal of long-term sustainability of the fund. The government has taken advice from numerous international institutions including the IMF and is being methodical in crafting the legislation for the fund that emphasises inclusivity and transparency and links the fund’s management with the GSDS. This legislation is a cumulation of all that has been learned worldwide about resource-rich countries. It has taken time but it is finally coming together. There is a vision and a plan to implement it.
Guyana’s prospects are truly exciting. Our oil reserves are substantial; and growing. They have the potential to make this small country with a tortured, turbulent history very wealthy and to offer us– its people– a standard of living we cannot yet properly imagine. Moreover, the SWF is designed to be a massive national savings account that will secure the prosperity of our children, grandchildren and many generations to come even when the finite resource of oil has run out. And crucially, because the proposed legislation aims at inclusivity, it is hoped the SWF will become the one tangible, unifying symbol which all Guyanese, regardless of politics, can support. It is hard to envisage, but Guyana and Guyanese, for the first time in centuries, will finally be masters of our own destiny.