Dear Editor,
On Friday I will deliver a comprehensive set of documents to the President and Prime Minister of Guyana asking for a Commission of Inquiry into the media. I and members of the African Community have reached the conclusion that this must be made public. Many of our letters are not printed, and some are edited beyond belief to protect vested racial and economic interests, etc.
Just a few days ago I sent a letter to each of the media houses; only the Stabroek News carried it, but as usual key elements of my letter were edited out. They came after the following portion:
“Those who are advising against a small modular refinery are advising against Guyana national economic and security interests. Our coast is at risk from climate change and Guyana needs to diversify its economy. A refinery which underpins our industrial policy will be the difference between sustainability or not.
“At another level, those who are saying no to a refinery are also saying no to local content. All the jobs created by the 8 industries mentioned above would go to the hot country in which the refinery was built. Guyana has to define its local content vision differently from developed countries.”
The lines below were edited out:
“Local content in Guyana should have 5 dimensions.
“Like South Africa when it legislated local content in its post-Apartheid B[l]ack Economic Empowerment (BEE) Charter, Guyana needs to ensure OWNERSHIP is an element of local content. MANAGEMENT should also be an element of local content so that critical skill and management techniques reside in Guyanese and not foreign expats. SKILLS DEVELOPMENT should also be a local content imperative so that knowledge transfer happens. Guyana will ultimately become a very larger producer of oil. The Central Intelligence Fact Book has for over a decade announced the Guyana-Suriname basin is the largest untapped foreign reserves in the world (50 billion barrels). Mandatory skills development should therefore be a necessary prerequisite for all foreign entities operating in Guyana’s sovereign space as part of local content requirement. PROCUREMENT is also a critical element of local content. Currently hundreds of jobs, products and services are being obtained from Trinidad at the expense of Guyanese. This has to change over time but must be mandated now. And finally, INVESTMENT must be part of local content. Our financial institutions need to address their AML/CFT gaps as well as be more inclusive so that Guyanese of all races, especially Indigenous and African groups benefit from pooled investment into an onshore oil and gas facility and a small refinery.”
As part of our quest for a fair impartial non racist press (blogs and fictitious writers like Sultan Mohamed, etc), we will hold a National Conference on the Media in March.
Yours faithfully,
Eric M Phillips Jr
Editor’s note
The paragraph which Mr Phillips alleges was omitted from the published version of his letter which appeared in our edition of Tuesday, January 24, 2017, was not in fact omitted. In keeping with house style the capitalized words were reduced to lower case, and the paragraph appeared in two parts. However, the entire content of his letter was reproduced.
Stabroek News reserves the right to edit any letter.
