If the issue of jurisdiction over the Corentyne river has a tendency to surface, sometimes at the most awkward moments, what is now the ‘common denominator between the Guyana and Suriname is their discovery of world class oil deposits, a matter of a few years apart and the role that has played in developing a common agenda between the two countries.
The focus these days, for both countries, is on seeking to maximize the use of their oil resources to present an enhanced socio-economic image to the international community, but before that, to alter the impoverished condition that the two have to endure for years.
Guyana having been the first of the two to reap the benefits of its oil bonanza can be said to be ahead in the race for petro prosperity, though there is manifest evidence that Suriname, since the French Company TOTAL confirmed that Suriname, too, was ‘in the running’ for ‘big time’ returns from the oil and gas industry, has begun to chomp at the bit of ‘going places.’