— in prudent management of oil and gas sector

GUYANA can benefit from an improved oil and gas sector if policy makers collaborate even more with the country’s active civil society, according to Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Specialist Lawrence Lachmansingh.

“Our experience with oil and gas, so far in Guyana, has encouraged us to think that collaboration across civil society and including key governmental partners can work,” Lachmansingh told the Guyana Chronicle in a recent interview, on the sidelines of an oil and gas event.

The consultant gave the example of the Natural Resources Fund, Act No. 12 of 2019, which was passed by the National Assembly and signed into law by President David Granger earlier this year.

“With the Natural Resource Fund legislation, we had a really good civil society based process where we (civil society bodies) invited government in and we think, in many ways, it has strengthened that legislation,” the man said.

What that experience has shown is that civil society stakeholders can be effective “partners” with policy makers, according to Lachmansingh, who highlighted just how proud he was of that engagement; and as such, he stressed that collaboration with civil society would augur well for governance of the developing oil and gas sector.

“It [collaboration] can actually be beneficial without actually making any of us (government and civil society) become co-opted with the other,” he said.

Lachmansingh also opined that one of the deficiencies that Guyana has generally, not only with oil and gas, is that it needs to recognise that “one one dutty gotta mek a dam.”

What he means by this, is that the country does not currently possess enough resources, technical resources and financial skills, and as a result must focus on ‘pooling resources,’ whether among civil society and government, or even just among civil society.

“It is to the benefit of the oil and gas agenda,” he affirmed.

Recently, Local Content Consultant Oil and Gas and Mining in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Canada, Rene Roger Tissot, told this newspaper that the strengthening of civil society at the local level to ensure it is a key variable in ensuring the success of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Guyana was recently embarked upon.

Guyana submitted its first EITI report to the International Secretariat on April 25, 2019, with the aim of promoting the open and accountable management of oil, gas and mineral resources.