Several sets of circumstances are competing for public and official attention in Guyana at this time. Foremost among these are the continually rampaging Covid-19 pandemic and its multifaceted impacts; the feebleness of the responses to the malady that we are able to muster at this time; the national preoccupation with the transformational socio-economic potential that reposes in Guyana’s new-found status as an oil- producing country and evidence that government is seeking to chisel the country’s status as an oil producer into its foreign policy in a manner that radically transforms the timbre of our relations with the rest of the world.
Taken together, these separate sets of circumstances place on the shoulders of those in government the responsibility to consolidate the national sense of optimism that arose out of the ongoing oil finds and the subsequent advancement to a point where oil was being recovered, sold and the proceeds actually accruing to the national coffers. Frankly, it is difficult to think of another poor country in the modern world, at this time, whose current portents for fast-tracked socio-economic advancement exceed Guyana’s; never mind the fact that the science of the climate change lobby now appears to place time-bound constraints on the viability of oil recovery.
One might add here that in the instance of Guyana, popular expectations with regard to the anticipated returns from our ‘oil bonanza’ are attended by a considerable measure of national impatience.
Arising out of all this have been efforts to shift the country’s foreign policy focus towards, first, opening up the country to investment probes which, hopefully, will, over time, become transformed into a surfeit of lucrative, fortune-changing investments across the sectors as well as the opening up of new external markets for the goods and services that we provide. Presumably, too, Guyana would want to graft new, more expansive dimensions onto its relations with the rest of the Caribbean in ways that provide practical support for the aspiration of a hoped-for holistic regional development agenda. Such actions are likely to impact positively on the well-being of the region as a whole and by extension, on Guyana’s image as a leader in the Caribbean. Here, it is apposite to reflect on the relationship between the long-held view that Guyana has the potential to become the agricultural hub of the Caribbean and what might now be the materialization of the emerging opportunity for the region to, in the period ahead, slay the ghost of food insecurity.
And if it might appear to be, at this stage, we could at least speculate that transformed socio-economic circumstances might not bring about shifts in the competing political postures into some kind of modus vivendi that might, at least, expunge from our political culture the angst and aggravation which, over the decades, has left us with the brand of the politically ‘sick man’ of the region.
Even now there are concerns over the likelihood of us slipping from the triumph of our considerable ‘oil wealth’ into winding up a political disappointment. The rancid nature of our politics has long provided favoured themes for public discourse.
Here, the question arises as to whether such gains as ought to derive from a long-sought ‘El Dorado’ might not end up being sacrificed on the altar of divisions, solutions to which, seemingly, require more courage and resolve than we can muster.
The problem here reposes in a genuine concern that what is widely felt to be the unchanging toxicity of our political culture might well be the barrier to reaping the benefits of our oil-linked economic prospects. As things stand the political protagonists appear, decidedly, not to be in the mood for listening, trapped as they appear to be in the prison of their ‘tribalized’ constituencies.
These are issues that ought to constitute the Guyana socio-political agenda even as the good fortune of our ‘oil wealth is being balanced against the findings of climate science of which oil recovery now appears to be a prisoner.
We are, at this juncture, challenged to seek to move in two directions. The first direction has to do with creating a materially better-endowed country driven to a much greater extent than is the case at this time, by common goals. As has already been said the good fortune of our oil and gas windfall has had no discernable impact on our predisposition for a more convivial political culture. Oil, contrary to what some may think, is no panacea for prosperity.
