Attorney Charles Ramson Jnr has resigned as a Member of Parliament with immediate effect to pursue a Masters in oil and gas and has since registered his disappointment at the lack of youth representation in the House and the government’s refusal to send Bills to a parliamentary select committee.
Ramson informed the Speaker of National Assembly Dr Barton Scotland of his resignation in a letter on Friday and also included the shortcomings he had observed.
In the letter which was shared with the media, he said he took a decision to pursue studies in the oil and gas area given that Guyana continues to move in that direction.
He expressed the view that “it is absolutely critical for our national development that we have Guyanese who are technically trained in the oil and gas sector. This is particularly important for us as a nation in this preparatory phase as we frame the relevant policy, law and vision if we are to avoid the often cited ‘resource curse’ commonly associated with oil and gas producing nations,” he said.
According to Ramson, there is no doubt that the absence of any member of the Cabinet with any such technical training or experience in the sector will have a “militating effect on the pace and quality of development not only of the nascent sector but of the country.”
He said that what is of worry is that this absence will also increase the likelihood of “squander” and consequently, the expected benefits will elude the Guyanese people.
Ramson explained that it was for this reason that he applied for and was offered a place to study at one of the best oil and gas universities in the world – the University of Aberdeen, located in Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom, the oil and gas capital of Europe, to pursue a Masters in Oil and Gas Enterprise Management.
It was explained that admission to this course is extremely competitive as over 1,000 people from around the world apply every academic year with only about 20 persons being admitted.
Additionally, Ramson informed that he was awarded a full scholarship from Chevening, a prestigious scholarship competitively awarded on a global scale funded by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The selection criteria for Chevening Scholarship, he said are aimed to identify “high-calibre graduates with the personal, intellectual and interpersonal qualities necessary for leadership.
“It is with a heavy heart that having accepted both offers I, hereby, submit my resignation as a Member of Parliament with immediate effect.”
Ramson said that as he departs he feels compelled to express his extreme disappointment about two issues during his time in Parliament.
The first being the absence of youth representation both at the Cabinet and parliamentary levels which “increases political apathy and destroys legitimacy.” He said that this is particularly regrettable given the youth drive leading up to the 2015 elections.
The second matter he said is that the current APNU+AFC Government has made it pellucid that it is not committed to the realisation of the most fundamental desire of the Guyanese people – national unity – by demonstrating its unflinching position of not sending bills to a select committee despite the pleading from the opposition.
“Sending bills to a parliamentary select committee happened virtually as a matter of course especially in the last eight years under the PPP/C Government. The squandered opportunity which cannot now be regained would have framed the success of politics by forging a working relationship among political leaders in a country plagued by divisions in politics and race or a combination of both,” he said.
He admitted that such a move might have slowed the process but “being able to work together despite differences is the extolled virtues of a democracy. This is really what the Guyanese people would have wanted first and foremost from us Parliamentarians – lasting unity forged in struggle rather than notional unity spoken in the abstract.”
