Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago yesterday inked a long-awaited Memoran-dum of Understanding (MoU) on Energy Sector Cooperation with the leaders of both countries assuring that there is no need to fear any “takeover” of the energy sector by either side.
“There is nothing in the MoU which seeks to harm the interest of one state or the other. There is no sellout. There were some unjustified fears that Guyana is giving away the family jewels but that is not true. It is simply a means of collaborating,” President David Granger told reporters at the signing ceremony at State House. (See full MoU on page 23.)
T&T Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley said that specific teams from both countries will work on specific projects and problems to either initiate, ameliorate or generate the kinds of outcome to contribute to the growth of the economies and the sustenance of the peoples of both countries.
Following the signing of the MoU and an “intense meeting” at State House, Granger and Rowley addressed the media. Present at the signing were Foreign Affairs Minister Carl Greenidge, his T&T counterpart Dennis Moses; Minister of State Joseph Harmon, T&T Energy Minister Franklin Khan, Minister of Social Cohesion with responsibility for Culture, Youth and Sport Dr George Norton, his T&T counterpart Shamfa Cudjoe; Minister of Agriculture Noel Holder, his T&T counterpart Clarence Rambharat; T&T Minister of Planning and Development Camille Robinson-Regis, Minister of Business Dominic Gaskin and Minister in the Ministry of Finance Jaipaul Sharma.
The MoU, Rowley said, “should come into force on the 1st of October.”
Asked how the MoU addresses the fears of local businesses that T&T was coming to take over their businesses, Granger said the MoU, which was released to the media yesterday afternoon, was simply a means of collaborating. T&T was bringing years of experience, he said, not only in oil production but also in marketing, in gas production, oil spills and in dealing with multinational corporations.
“The MoU is a means of benefitting from Trinidad and Tobago’s advice, experience and expertise they have been building up over a long period of time. The fears that there is some giveaway are completely unjustified,” he asserted.
Rowley was disappointed in the reaction because the two countries, he said, are working towards ensuring that as people of CARICOM, they could do better for themselves “and to come up against that, is disappointing.”
He continued, “To the extent that there is any potential takeover, which I don’t think is happening or is going to happen, it is simply the participation of a good neighbour working with those who have the need for our presence, maybe our finance (and) our entrepreneurial skills.”
As long as both countries remain friendly with each other, he said, he expects that businesses in T&T and Guyana would be welcomed and should be encouraged to participate in each other’s economies to benefit all.
Debt
His disappointment was not driven by any intention to rebuke anyone but since it was a subject of national or international discourse, he said, “I would be failing in my duty if I do not point out to any such point of view here in Guyana that we, in Trinidad and Tobago, are proud to have the record to show that as a small developing country, not being a member of the Paris Club, when Guyana sought relief at the Paris Club for debt forgiveness, we wrote off billions of Trinidad and Tobago dollars of Guyana’s debt.”
The write-off, he said, was done against the background of international pressures. “We are not holding that as any quid pro quo. We are treating that as circumstantial and we maintain our position that we are a friendly cooperating neighbour of Guyana.”
While the meeting was largely about the MoU and energy cooperation, Granger said, they also discussed agriculture, sport, youth, security and cooperation in other fields.
As signatories to the treaty that founded the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Granger said the signing of the MoU was strengthening the community and the meeting was a clear definition and reassertion of Guyana’s Caribbean identity.
“We have abundant raw materials, natural resources, gold, diamond, timber, manganese, bauxite and we are confident that by collaborating, we will be able to combine the natural resources of Guyana with the entrepreneurial expertise, capital and investment from Trinidad and Tobago. So for both of us, it is a win-win situation. For the Caribbean Community as well this is a significant step in making the Caribbean Community stronger,” he declared.
Apart from the MoU’s commitment to do more in their neighbourly relations with respect to generating economic and other activities, Rowley said, “We also discussed in detail the existence of invisible borders in our endeavours” and “to let our efforts identify the resources available in each of our countries and to put those resources whether financial, raw material or entrepreneurial skills to work so as to grow the economies.” In both countries where there is much in common, he said, economic growth “should not be held back by any bureaucratic impediment.”
Putting the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) back on the agenda of CARICOM Heads of Government, he said, was necessary for the same reasons Guyana and T&T signed the MoU.
The reason for that, he said, is because the region was being forced by circumstances inside and outside to deal with the issue of a single market and single economy with deeper concern and “some may say, finality.”
To this end, he said, a meeting of CARICOM Heads of Government will take place on December 3 and 4 in Port-of-Spain to deal specifically with the CSME. Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi as a supporter of CARICOM, is expected to attend that meeting, he said.
Has done well
Asked why Guyana should take advice from T&T when that country’s energy sector is in the state it is in, Rowley said, “Trinidad and Tobago is in no state. Trinidad and Tobago is a country that has done well for itself and we have done so largely on the back of the hydrocarbon business.”
The country, he said, has had “difficulties of one kind or another since time immemorial.”
T&T has used the hydrocarbon sector from “way back when,” he said, and is one of the oldest oil producers in the world.
With respect to its origin, he said, it began with tar from the Pitch Lake being used to cork ships that were leaking. Subsequently, they drilled and found oil. Over time, they became one of the major producers of refined products in the British Empire. On becoming a nation, they became owners of the assets and some of the infrastructure.
“It did very well for us at the international marketplace and allowed us to prosper. Much of our reserves today that would have buttressed us during this period is as a result of our earnings in the international marketplace,” he said.
Those who enjoyed the benefits of secondary education, the quality of healthcare, infrastructure of all kinds including telecommunication and roads, he said, were paid for from earnings in the hydrocarbon sector.
“If today we are having to treat with a piece of equipment – not the oil industry – a refining equipment in the industry, if today we have financial concerns about that and we take rectification, that puts us in no state, but puts us in a better position to continue to prosper in the hydrocarbon sector,” he declared.
Even as reference was made to the state-owned Petrotrin refinery which the T&T government has opted to close, Rowley said, exploration activities are underway on the east coast of Trinidad where four rigs are drilling in the deep water with success.
“And we have moved our interest in the hydrocarbon sector from oil onshore to oil offshore, from gas offshore to gas in the deep water, we are now as engaged as ever or even more so in the hydrocarbon sector as we were 100 years ago,” he said.
Asked about advice he would give Granger in treating with contracts, given Guyana’s experience with ExxonMobil’s contract, Rowley said, “I would not want to give public advice to my colleague but I do know that Trinidad and Tobago having been in this business for so long and that we have engaged in very much in what you will be engaging in, whatever our experiences have been, good, bad or indifferent, it would do Guyana well to know what that experience is, even if it is not taken as advice.”
He would not want, he said, “to criticise what kinds of contracts you may have entered into. Contracts tend to reflect time and place and circumstances. All I would say to Guyana is to understand where you are at, in the time and place, and understand that you have a friend in Trinidad and Tobago that has had a little bit of experience in this and a 100 years might be of some benefit to you.”
He continued, “We do have some people who have done this for a living and we have some companies that do it for a living and we believe that what is good for T&T in this business on the continental shelf of Guyana is also good for Guyana. So we can only see positives if our countries collaborate in this business of the hydrocarbon industry.”
The way T&T enters into contract as a small country taking part in a big industry, he said, is by respecting the sanctity of contracts, while accepting that they are not written in stone.
