Saturday, June 14, 2025
Village Voice News
ADVERTISEMENT
  • Home
  • News
  • Sports
  • Editorial
  • Letters
  • Global
  • Columns
    • Eye On Guyana
    • Hindsight
    • Lincoln Lewis Speaks
    • Future Notes
    • Blackout
    • From The Desk of Roysdale Forde SC
    • Diplomatic Speak
    • Mark’s Take
    • In the village
    • Mind Your Business
    • Bad & Bold
    • The Voice of Labour
    • The Herbal Section
    • Politics 101 with Dr. David Hinds
    • Talking Dollars & Making Sense
    • Book Review 
  • Education & Technology
  • E-Paper
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Sports
  • Editorial
  • Letters
  • Global
  • Columns
    • Eye On Guyana
    • Hindsight
    • Lincoln Lewis Speaks
    • Future Notes
    • Blackout
    • From The Desk of Roysdale Forde SC
    • Diplomatic Speak
    • Mark’s Take
    • In the village
    • Mind Your Business
    • Bad & Bold
    • The Voice of Labour
    • The Herbal Section
    • Politics 101 with Dr. David Hinds
    • Talking Dollars & Making Sense
    • Book Review 
  • Education & Technology
  • E-Paper
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
Village Voice News
No Result
View All Result
Home Columns

MY TURN GUYANA MAGICAL AND TRAGIC MOMENTS

Staff Reporter by Staff Reporter
December 27, 2020
in Columns, My Turn Guyana
0
SHARES
0
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

By Moses V. Nagamootoo
Former Prime Minister

READ ALSO

Endorsements are headline grabbers

IsDB, GUYANA with a Misrepresentation at the Islamic Development Bank as VICE PRESIDENT ???; Guyana’s Constitution page 59 Prime Minister, 102 (2) “The Prime Minister shall, by holding that office, be a Vice-President, and he or she shall have PRECEDENCE over any other Vice-President.”; IsDB Annual Meetings in TUNISIA and MORROCCO, and Pictures’ Speak.

December 20 was designated “National Petroleum Day”. I had written this article for publication last week but replaced it by a commentary on the decision from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Guyana’s application regarding the finality of the 1899 Arbitral Award on the sanctity of our border with Venezuela.

I had noted that I would be a surprise if the PPP government were to celebrate this day; and that if it did, it would do so grudgingly, without giving any credit to the former Coalition Government for its caretaker role in the delivery by ExxonMobil of first oil in Guyana.
It would vindictively erase that piece of our history that is associated with Guyana’s first multi-party/multi-racial government.

MERE FOOTNOTE
As it turned out, the PPP government did not officially recognize “National Petroleum Day”; nor did it celebrate it. A mere footnote to the occasion took the form of a vulgar boast from a new minister that “we worked hard” over the past four months to achieve production of 120,000 barrels of oil per day!

I could imagine him and his colleagues, in laughable cartoon style, rolling up their dirty sleeves and scrubbing off from their hands the heavy crude after their “hard work”.
However, this type of revisionism which is associated with the debilitating disease of nasty political spite and narrow-mindedness, cannot change the fact that this date is indelibly carved in our history whether or not it is styled “national petroleum day”.

OLD GUARDS
The old guards who had sold out the country’s oil patrimony when they agreed to a one-half percent royalty when it first signed on with the oil majors, are back in the saddle after the controversial March 2020 elections.
The Coalition had agreed for a 2% royalty plus a 50% profit oil which resource nationalists and industry experts have, not without some merit, dismissed as being too little. As expected, out of office, the PPP jumped on that bandwagon by promising to renegotiate the contract for more lucrative terms.

They have already threatened to amend or remove the Natural Resources Fund Act (NRF) which came into law on January 23, 2019 as the legal framework for the use of our oil money.
Titillated by the appetising smell of a stash of fresh cash, it would inevitably pack the Commission with its cronies to advise on how to access the oil monies which, by yearend, could reach an estimated US$130,000,000 (over G$26,000,000,000), now held in an account at the New York Federal Reserve Bank.

This government will not trash from the law the powers of the Minister of Finance, which the PPP had deemed to be excessive.

MAGIC MOMENT
I had looked forward to first oil with sincere optimism when Guyana started to commercially produce oil, tentatively at 120,000 barrel per day and potentially 750,000 per day by 2025. Our reserve is estimated to have some eight billion barrels of oil.
Though the country’s expected 86% growth rate has been downgraded due to Covid-19 production cut-back, I still tenaciously cling to my hope that two precious words – Sweet Oil – will remain on the lips of every patriotic Guyanese during my lifetime and that of the next generation.

On December 15 last year I wrote that First Oil would become Guyana’s magic moment. It will be the beginning of a promising rags-to-riches epic — a composite of Cinderella and the pauper-to-prince, surreal, fairytales.
At the time I said that the good news reverberated in my heart like the nostalgic lyrics of Ben E. King and the Drifters when they sung about “this magic moment”, being “so different and so new”, and “sweeter than wine”.

COMMON PLATFORM
It could be made sweeter if only we could have sensible policies, stable governance and a feeling that our oil is “we ting”, not a cursed resource to be stolen by foreigners or squandered by a bunch of recycled kleptocrats.
The magic, however, was accompanied by double tragedy. The dreaded Covid pandemic descended in March. Then came the foreign reactionary horde who, with “mighty and unstoppable hands” scripted the covert interference, under threats of sanctions, for regime change.

We have, so far, avoided the worst. Yet, we hear, as we wish the old year goodbye, only hallow sentiments for “cooperation” and “unity”.
We could do better if we forged a common national platform on our oil wealth, as we need to do to combat the pandemic. Anything else would be sheer political gamble.

ShareTweetSendShareSend

Related Posts

Adam Harris
The Adam Harris Notebook

Endorsements are headline grabbers

by Admin
June 14, 2025

In recent times the talk has been about endorsements. Much has been made of the endorsements by people leaving one...

Read moreDetails
Diplomatic Speak

IsDB, GUYANA with a Misrepresentation at the Islamic Development Bank as VICE PRESIDENT ???; Guyana’s Constitution page 59 Prime Minister, 102 (2) “The Prime Minister shall, by holding that office, be a Vice-President, and he or she shall have PRECEDENCE over any other Vice-President.”; IsDB Annual Meetings in TUNISIA and MORROCCO, and Pictures’ Speak.

by Admin
June 14, 2025

GUYANA was ADMITTED to the IsDB Group, at the 41st Annual Meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia from 15 to 19 May...

Read moreDetails
SATYA PRAKASH

Dr. Hinds, ‘massa day done, I’m no bai – I’m a man, father and leader’

by Admin
June 11, 2025

I have once again taken note of the outrageous and disparaging remarks made by Dr. David Hinds in reference to...

Read moreDetails
Next Post

Bi-partisanship pivotal to development


EDITOR'S PICK

Latin America and Caribbean gets US$20.7b support from World Bank in COVID fight

August 20, 2022
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries

The Second Day of Kwanzaa- Kujichagulia (Self-Determination)

December 27, 2022
(240414) -- BEIJING, April 14, 2024 (Xinhua) -- People visit the fourth China International Consumer Products Expo in Haikou, capital city of south China's Hainan Province, April 13, 2024. China launched a series of global consumption events on Saturday at the fourth China International Consumer Products Expo in Haikou. Lasting from April 13 to 18, the expo will host over 4,000 brands from 71 countries and regions, which are expected to showcase their novel and upmarket products for global consumers, according to the organizer. (Xinhua/Tian Weiwei)

Resilience, potential, fundamentals of Chinese economy remain sound

April 16, 2024

Govt retreats from fight against unlimited oil spill liability so must withdraw court appeal

April 28, 2025

© 2024 Village Voice

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Sports
  • Editorial
  • Letters
  • Global
  • Columns
    • Eye On Guyana
    • Hindsight
    • Lincoln Lewis Speaks
    • Future Notes
    • Blackout
    • From The Desk of Roysdale Forde SC
    • Diplomatic Speak
    • Mark’s Take
    • In the village
    • Mind Your Business
    • Bad & Bold
    • The Voice of Labour
    • The Herbal Section
    • Politics 101 with Dr. David Hinds
    • Talking Dollars & Making Sense
    • Book Review 
  • Education & Technology
  • E-Paper
  • Contact Us

© 2024 Village Voice