A POST-RACIAL FUTURE FOR GUYANA IS WITHIN GRASP

Written by Ralph Ramkarran

Saturday, 9th November 2019 9:00 pm

During last week, the Stabroek News published an article (Akola Thompson “Towards a post-racial future” and a letter (Ryhaan Shaw “Little hope of a post-racial future for Guyana any time soon”) on the future of race in Guyana. Race is a difficult issue to discuss because of its complexity and intractability. But a peaceful and productive ethnic future for Guyana depends on how, and how urgently, we deal with the issue of race. Unless we do so soon, the sore of race in its several manifestations will continue to fester, producing infected material, draining the energy of Guyana into bad governance, marginalization and discrimination, crime and corruption.

Ethnic hatred, born of prejudices developed over centuries, having their bases usually, but not always, in economic factors, is difficult to eradicate, even as conditions of discrimination are alleviated by laws and social measures, as experience in the US has shown. Guyana’s situation may not be unique. Trinidad developed in a similar manner. Both countries have two large ethnic minorities that make up the large majority of the population. But our politics developed differently. The Peoples’ National Movement traditionally had a significant enough Indo-Trinidadian vote that kept it in office for decades during the era of Eric Williams. After that coalition fractured, Trinidad maintained a sizeable floating vote, comprising all sections of the populations, which resulted in periodic alternation between the parties, despite maintaining fairly rigid ethnic voting patterns and sensitivities.

FOOD AND BOOZE IN PARLIAMENT

Written by Ralph Ramkarran

Saturday, 18th August 2018 9:00 pm

A report on the cost of food for each sitting of Parliament, being $700,000, has triggered a particularly sharp debate about the cost and the alleged supply of alcohol. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo, confessed that he consumes the food. He said: “I eat the food. What do you suggest? I don’t eat the food? I eat the food…I like eating too. And it’s not like it’s fancy food. It’s not fancy food…” The problem the teetotaler Mr. Jagdeo said, confirming the traditionally austere leadership of the PPP, was the alcohol. “It’s not just the food. It’s the huge amount of alcohol that gets consumed and imbibed in Parliament…fancy, fancy, liquor.” Mr. Jagdeo noted that Opposition members would hardly ever, if at all, utilize alcohol provided by Parliament Office. “They do eat. We eat. I eat the food,” he emphasized, “..but it’s the alcohol part that I have a problem with.” But the politics intruded. Mr. Jagdeo suggested that it was some Government members who excessively imbibed during sittings. After suggesting that the cost of the alcohol might be as much as the cost of food, he recommended that members purchase their own alcohol.

If the Leader of the Opposition was concerned that MPs would be drunk on their feet or otherwise in Parliament, he should not worry. The public, viewing debates, would assume that MPs are drunk anyway – Government Members, with power, and Opposition Members, seeking it.

THE $20 BILLION QUESTION FOR GUYANA

Written by Ralph Ramkarran

Saturday, 21st July 2018 9:00 pm

On Friday last the New York Times published “The $20 Billion Question for Guyana.” It was a lengthy review of Guyana and the impact that the oil discovery by Exxon and its partners in offshore Guyana is likely to have. Two recent articles by the Wall Street Journal and Foreign Affairs, of world-wide reputation, like the New York Times (NYT), were published and reprinted in Guyana. Few Guyanese would recognize the description of Georgetown by one of them as ‘sleepy’ or by the NYT as a ‘musty clapboard town…which seems forgotten by time.’ Notwithstanding these unflattering first impressions of Georgetown by foreign journalists, the articles helped to highlight, not only the amount of financial resources that will become available to Guyana, but how those resources can be used or misused.

Guyana is described as an unlikely setting for the next oil boom. It is ‘one of the poorest countries in South America can become one of the wealthiest.’ The NYT article said that all the talk in Georgetown is about a sovereign wealth fund to manage the money. It underlined Minister Raphael Trotman’s comment, perhaps speaking hyperbolically, if he indeed said so, that we have been given a chance to get things right because ‘the Chinese cut down our forests and dug out our gold and we never got a cent…we could end up with the same experience with ExxonMobil.’ Whatever the dangers, Rystad Energy is quoted as predicting that Guyana will get $6 Billion by the end of the 2020s. But this is a modest estimate with a production of eventually 500,000 barrels a day. Doug McGhee, Exxon Operations Manager, predicted better social services and infrastructure, ‘if the government manages the resources right.’

THE CCJ UNDER ATTACK – ‘POLITICIANS IN ROBES’

Written by Ralph Ramkarran

Saturday, 26th May 2018 9:00 pm

The total electoral devastation of the Democratic Labour Party(DLP) and the political exit door shown to former Prime Minister, Freundel Stuart, by the Barbados electorate at the elections last Thursday, is an apt and decisive answer to the vicious attack Stuart made on the Caribbean Court of Justice earlier in the week, when referring to the judges derogatorily as ‘politicians in robes.’ It is not unusual for politicians to be peeved by court decisions. Guyanese politicians have expressed ‘concern’ about issues relating to the CCJ on several occasions in the past, including the recent past.

In the UK, the developed country from which we inherited our laws and jurisprudence, and whose precedents are the most influential in the CCJ, judges and courts are regularly criticized, as they should be. But Stuart did not merely criticize; he unjustifiably attacked the CCJ for political bias and undertook to withdraw from the Court. Had he won the elections, Barbados’s withdrawal would have dealt a crushing blow to Caribbean unity and, worse, would have weakenedCaribbean jurisprudence and the rule of law in the region.

500,000 Barrels A Day.

Written by Ralph Ramkarran

Saturday, 10th March 2018 9:00 pm

With the production of 500,000 barrels a day for 300 days a year at US$40 a barrel, the annual income would be US$6 billion. The cost of production of oil varies widely, depending on whether it is onshore or offshore and if offshore, how far away and how deep. To give some idea North Sea oil was produced by BP in 2014 at US$30 a barrel. It went down to US$15 a barrel in 2017 and is expected to go down to US$12 a barrel by 2020. The estimated cost of production in offshore Guyana has not been made known by either the Government or ExxonMobil. We are therefore left to speculate.

Assuming that a maximum of about half of the income would be deducted as production costs, US$3 billion would be deducted as production costs from an annual income of US$6 billion. Guyana would earn 50 percent of the profit, that is, US$1.5 billion plus 2 percent of US$6 billion as royalty which would add another US$120 million. At minimum, therefore, Guyana’s economy would double. More likely than not, Guyana’s economy would grow to three times its current size and even more, if the price remains around US$60 per barrel and if more discoveries are made resulting in higher production. ExxonMobil has drilled only eight wells in seven of which oil was discovered. It plans to drill another twenty. There are also other blocks to be explored by other oil companies and other blocks yet to be given out for exploration.