IN May 2015, ExxonMobil discovered oil in Guyana. In 2025, the sale of this nationally owned asset has shaped the economy in ways that are simply unimaginable since Independence. Guyana became a sovereign nation in 1966 but its economy was really a plantation one – export of raw materials by foreign corporations

The colonials left Guyana in the same way it left its former colonies – completely underdeveloped. Politics intervened between 1964 and 1974 to save the economy of Guyana. Western imperialism removed the government of Cheddi Jagan, and to showcase Guyana as a successful case of anti-communist experiment, foreign aid poured in and it was substantial.
During 1965 and 1966, the American Government committed US$18 million to Guyana which was drawn down as 1967 ended (source- Ramesh Gampat, “Essays: Guyana’s Economics, Politics and Demography”, page 178.)
Tyrone Ferguson has a superb chapter in his book that details the substantial aid and loans that poured into the coalition government of Burnham and Peter D’Aguiar (see Ferguson, “To survive sensibly or to court heroic death: management of Guyana’s political economy, 1965-1985).

In this period, Guyana’s economy grew at an annual rate of 4.78 percent (source, John Gafar: Guyana: From state control to free markets”, page 41). This was the first period of a sound economy since Independence. The second period of economic optimism was at the beginning of 1970 way into 1976 when sugar and bauxite prices hit the roof.
The Burnham government used the money extensively on infrastructure and it was that money that went into transporting the university from Queen’s College to Turkeyen where its credentials became seriously impressive.
From 1980 onwards, Guyana was to slump into unbearable economic depression. So bad it was that it led to mass migration. By 1984 when I returned from serving the Maurice Bishop Government in Grenada, the Guyana I saw had no resemblance to the Guyana in 1974 when I first entered UG as a student.

So extensive was the laceration to Guyana’s economic future in the 1980s that the Economic Recovery Programme of the Desmond Hoyte presidency was a drop in the ocean. Hoyte did secure foreign investments – GTT, Barama, Omai but they failed to transform Guyana from a poverty-stricken country to one emerging from underdevelopment.
In the meantime, globalisation with the World Trade Organization as its biggest salesman wreaked havoc on Third World economies. The removal of preferential market for Guyana sugar was a shock to the system
Under the Jagan and Jagdeo presidencies, Guyana’s economy began to improve and debt forgiveness under President Jagdeo was a huge input into the economy. But still Guyana rated lowly when compared to CARICOM and Latin nations. It was the discovery of oil that laid the basis for the permanent transformation of Guyana.

What oil is doing for this country, a country that suffered immensely for too long, is simply unimaginable. Guyana in 2025 bears no resemblance to the Guyana of the 70s onwards. You walk or drive around Guyana and you know we are not going back to where we came from. The oil economy has provided Guyana with a future that Western aid, sugar, bauxite and rice could never have provided.
It is in my interpretation of evil thinking for anyone to say that we should go out of oil. I use a strong word like evil because you have to be evil to think so when for years the world looked down on us, and we were called a failed state.

When we became an oil-producing economy, the New York Times sent one of its reporters to Guyana and all he painted was the poverty and underdevelopment he saw. In 2025, a huge part of what he saw no longer exists.
There could have been a better contract with ExxonMobil but the shape of the international system today and Guyana’s peripheral influence in international relations do not allow this country to force ExxonMobil into a more lucrative deal for Guyana. I cannot think of a harsher word to describe the advocates of forced renegotiations but asinine. It is downright stupid for anyone to take that position. It denotes massive ignorance of global realities.

In May 2015, ten years ago that discovery by ExxonMobil has changed the anatomy and biology of Guyana forever. We depended on aid after Independence, then, aid went. We depended on EU protected markets, then, they were removed. We hoped for extensive foreign investments but they didn’t come.
Then oil came, and with it a gargantuan opportunity for Guyana to have a permanent future. It is a commodity that is in demand and we should utilise that demand like crazy. One day, it will go but that is a long, long time, way into the future. For now, Guyana must use oil money to secure a blissful future.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.