If I were David Granger I would focus on reviving and expanding the sugar and coconut industries. With sugar and coconut, the Guyanese people could make tolum, sugar-cake, coconut roll and coconut oil. Fresh coconut water is in demand as a chaser among whiskey lovers!
But the Guyanese people, like their Trinidad neighbours, have no clue about the oil industry and want to dream big of raking in oil dollars. It is a dream until they wake up and realize that Guyana’s economy is rice, sugar-cane, lumber, dairy, fish, vegetable crops, lumber, gold, tourism etc. But such enterprises involve investments, hard work and risks.
Undoubtedly, Guyana has crude but only to enrich the multinational companies like ExxonMobil and Shell. These global operators with more than 100 years in the oil industry care little about welfare of the people. Unfortunately, leaders like Trinidad and Tobago’s Keith Rowley and Guyana’s David Granger fail to accept this reality.
After the PPP Government under Kamla Persad-Bissessar negotiated tax incentives for oil companies to explore for oil in the deep waters, Rowley was up in arms and charged that the last government had squandered the national patrimony and pledged to renegotiate these oil arrangements.
Nevertheless, the fake oil scandal has exposed how diabolical some leaders can be. In one breath Keith Rowley accused the Opposition of selling out the national patrimony while in another he is accused of covering up corruption in the sector.
In 2016 only God knew what the Granger Government negotiated with ExxonMobil. Now it is coming to light that the government would be left with a percentage of oil for it (the government) to find a market. Luckily the government was able to get Shell in Barbados to buy its crude from the Liza field. Now that it has at its disposal crude for marketing, the Department of Energy is NOW advertising for bids to get a company to market its crude. Certainly, there is no plan for a refinery in Guyana as the crude is shipped in tankers to North America.
I call upon our local OWTU to submit a bid to the Department of Energy in Guyana for the contract. Giving the long years of experience in the oil industry, the OWTU is the ideal local company with the experience and manpower to market Guyana’s crude. The OWTU is a company born out of the womb of struggles of working people of the oil industry in the 1930s!
My candid view is that Petrotrin is not going to open its doors again. I know that Comrade Roget is aware of that but he is simply playing the role the government wants him to play. A true team player, Roget values highly Black Power and knows that the PNM is the only vehicle to empower black people.
The truth is the Caribbean has produced nothing except tolum and sugar cake. Not even the steel pan has improved over the years to give it a global image despite millions of dollars squandered annually for the past 70 years. Even the sugar industry was shut down by the PNM to facilitate the food importers!
Indo Caribbean people have been swimming in “black crude” for the past 70 years. Indo- Guyanese should learn from the Trinidad and Tobago’s experience in oil. The truth is black people cannot manage their personal lives, more so an economy. Despite this repeated failure of black governments, they are still of the view that they have a mandate from heaven to rule.
Indo Caribbean leaders must work together to find a solution to this social and political crisis confronting their people. We must learn lessons of Bhagavan Krishna in the Mahabharata. The enemies have destroyed our livelihood. Our future as a community is bleak!
As an Indo Caribbean community we need to put race relations on the front burner. Our people are experiencing the brunt of discrimination. Unfortunately, when they attempt to speak about it in talk shows, they are shut up not by Blacks but by Indians hustlers.
We must beware of some of our talk show hosts. They are house slaves of conglomerates, conditioned to hate themselves and their ancestry. They have internalized their inferiority to their 1% bosses and have pure contempt for their callers whom they take pride in insulting.
The future of oil in Guyana is grim and Indians would be better of engaging in agriculture, developing family enterprises and preserving their ancestral values and heritage. Oil is a cannibal!
