Dear Editor,
I write to urge the PPP/C not to protest at the GIPEX event. There is a time and place for everything. Instead, the Opposition should seek a speaking role at the event so as to outline its position on the oil and gas sector, should it form the government following the next elections. Investors and potential investors like to know what a possible change in government is likely to bring.
You don’t invite guests to your home and engage in a family fight while they are there.
Of course any and every one enjoy the right to protest. But the public image of the country is important and scenes such as those we have seen recently with police and protestors should be avoided when we have guests who do, or are looking to do business with the country. Yes there are protests in other countries when hosting events, but most of these countries are not negatively impacted and if they are, they could afford it, Guyana in my view cannot.
Someone asked me in a Facebook post whether I think the PPP/C considers itself part of the Guyanese family. I don’t see how the PPP/C and every other political party could consider themselves anything other than part of the Guyanese family. But even if they don’t it is not how the political parties see themselves as far as GIPEX is concerned, it is how the outside world sees us as a collective…a Nation.
Yours faithfully,
Wesley Kirton
