Dear Editor,
WOW! This is indeed great news for Guyana, the announcement by Hess Corporation, one of the partners of Exxon Mobil with a 30 per cent share in the Stabroek block, that commercial oil production will begin in December 2019.

Editor, from the moment in that historic Month of May 2015, when Exxon announced its first discovery, which coincided with the ascension to office of the A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC), I have always envisaged that great day when first oil will be poured. It is now even closer than the initially projected time of the first quarter of 2020.

One can just imagine the bold newspaper headlines, both locally and internationally, as the newest oil-producing kid on the hydrocarbon block, bristling with productive energy as the nation awaits its benefits for a better life for ALL.
Again, who can fault such a joyous and momentous expectation? For, after all, as Guyanese, succeeding generations would have lived with the ever repeated saying that Guyana is a rich nation, endowed with so many natural resources, yet its people remained poor.

From time immemorial, we have been hearing about Guyana’s potential to become a developed country. Fast forward to 2015, that worn-out statement became a reality with the announcement. And now, four years later, it is about to happen. There is not a greater anticipated day than the one due in December.

But while Guyanese in general will be rejoicing, and rightly counting their chickens, for after all, they would have been grown in our back yard, and begin laying the golden eggs, there will be stepped up attacks from the usual quarters of the political opposition, which fraudulent political actions against the government have all been because of OIL.

For the PPP/C party, their actions, already found to be without merit, will border on the politically insane, as it will dredge up even more fake news and misinformation in its wicked quest to unlawfully justify removing a government that was duly elected, and which, since time, has been impacting the nation with so many satisfactory and beneficially great socio-economic programmes, with even more to come as the nation’s president has outlined in his Decade for Development programme. Sure enough, let the good times begin, but with a coalition government at the helm; for it is only this will guarantee all Guyanese a fair share of our patrimony.

Regards,
Aditya Panday