ChrisRam.net

Introduction

Following last week’s call for a Commission of Inquiry into the Petroleum Sector, more than a handful of individuals approached me enquiring whether the call was serious and what would be the expected outcome. After the spate of Presidential Commissions of Inquiry out of which practically no action was taken, it is not surprising that many persons are cynical about another Commission of Inquiry (COI). My response to those persons was to ask whether they are satisfied about the controversy which surrounds this nascent but critical sector, which will soon dominate Guyana’s economy and indeed all aspects of life in Guyana in as little as ten years.

Nor can anyone be satisfied about the uncertainty surrounding any depletion policy and the rate of extraction of petroleum under the 2016 Petroleum Agreement signed with Esso, Hess and CNOOC. They must surely worry about the implications of the quadruplicating of the country’s petroleum reserves following further discoveries by the three and the nearly dozen or so other oil companies that have been issued with Prospecting Licences. Continue reading “Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded (Part 60)”

Introduction

It was good to see Dr. Mark Bynoe, Director/Head of the Department of Energy in the Ministry of the Presidency speaking publicly on the petroleum sector. While Minister Joseph Harmon has been assigned responsibility for the sector by President Granger, and will necessarily be answerable to the National Assembly, the day to day management and oversight of the sector seem now to fall squarely on Dr. Bynoe.

In an interview with the State-owned Guyana Chronicle published last Wednesday, Dr. Bynoe was cautious about any “revisiting, revising, [or] renegotiating” any petroleum agreement but in a masterpiece of officialese, assured the Chronicle that “we” will continue to engage deeply to ensure that value leakage is reduced wherever possible. Continue reading “Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded (Part 59)”

Introduction

Amid all the noise about audits and Memorandum of Understanding, it is understandable and not at all surprising that a letter to the editor might have received less attention than it would have otherwise deserved. I suggest to every reader of this column to go back to last Friday’s Stabroek News and read the letter published under the name of Mr. Stephon Gabriel, Communications Officer of the Ministry of Natural Resources. Last Saturday was of course more than six weeks after Gabriel’s Ministry had ceded responsibility for petroleum to the Department of Energy in the Ministry of the Presidency and the timing of the letter raises interesting questions.

That letter, which would no doubt have been cleared at the highest level of the Ministry, made the astounding revelation that the Ministry had been given the strict responsibility (emphasis added) of ensuring ‘first oil’ production by 2020. As if to emphasise the point, Gabriel reported that that was “the preeminent objective over the past three years”. Continue reading “Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded (Part 58)”

Introduction

It has been over one month since the Ministry of Finance tabled in the National Assembly a fifty-one page document which it claims presents “preliminary proposals” to stimulate discussion on its plan for managing the flows from petroleum operations following first oil estimated to flow by the end of the first quarter of 2020. Central to the proposal are what is called the “fiscal rule”, embodied in the second element and that is a Natural Resource Fund to be established under a Natural Resource Fund Act.

I have projected that revenue from petroleum within the next calendar decade will account for approximately eighty percent of government revenues with both negative and positive implications for generations to come. Will we go the way of so many countries of which Nigeria, Venezuela and Democratic Republic of the Congo seem to be the poster children, unable to use their natural resources to improve the wellbeing of their people, reduce the wealth and income gap and fairly distribute their patrimony among all their people – born and unborn? Or could we follow the path of Chile and Botswana which have used very similar resources but pursuing a very different path, to transform their countries and the lives of their people? Of course in so many ways, Singapore, without any natural resources, has been an outstanding example, if not of a political model, but of what inspired vision and leadership can do for a country. Continue reading “Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded (Part 57)”