…in Natural Resources
At was the then newly-minted Opposition Leader Bharat Jagdeo who first pointed out that Rafael Trotman was waaaaaay out of his depth at the Paris Climate Talks. Up to then, he’d been more (in)famous for swearing (as an executive of the PNC) to “oppose, expose and depose the PPP” and launching the AFC to accomplish his goal. Ramjattan was played like a (second) fiddle: his greed blinded him to the Nassau Accord.
Anyway, since Paris, Trotman’s continued his upward trajectory in Government – he snagged the Natural Resources Ministry – but sadly, he’s still threading water and flailing away in the whirlpool of his incompetence. If it were only him going down, it wouldn’t really have mattered, would it? But sadly his portfolio exposes our greatest asset – natural resources – to ruination, as he fritters away the one opportunity to lift ourselves out of the poverty his PNC plunged us into during their illegal 28 years. Trotman seems determined to have our resources become a curse.
We’d already identified a welter of examples of Trotman’s blunders – but they were more or less sins of omission – like not negotiating a royalty on the oil Exxon will be pumping from their Liza find. The latest one – having Cabinet approve his plan to build a US$500 million onshore oil processing facility on Crab Island – however, is a nasty sin of commission. The investment would by faaaar exceed the investment on the Skeldon Sugar Factory, and all Trotman can promise is 600 jobs!!
And if that promise is anything like the one to deliver a Code of Conduct for Ministers since last year, we know that number is waaaaay inflated! But at best, US$800,000 plus per job? Why not simply give the money to 600 APNU supporters? Cause that’s what this boondoggle is all about, isn’t it? The Opposition Leader calls the entire project a “pie in the sky” – but it’s the building of the foundation for holding up the pie in the sky that worries your Eyewitness.
We’re told that the Crab Island facility “will include shipyard, port facilities oil field waste disposal, oil-spill response, electrical power infrastructure, support and heliport facilities, platform fabrication support and numerous other services.” While Trotman claims these are all needed for exploiting our oil reserves, he’d ignoring the elephant in the room: ExxonMobil has refused to be part of the boondoggle.
They, of course, have decided to go with an FPSO that will ensure not a drop of oil pumped, even from their new fields, reaches our shore!!
So who’ll invest US$500 million in an oily pig in a poke? “Pie in the sky” is being kind!
…in fees
We heard about the Government’s plans for taxing water and electricity and removing the exemption on a welter of essential items for the “small man”. Then came the tax on education. The fees for parking in Georgetown, of course, was long advanced. But a tax on breeding dogs? That’s right… dogs! What’s next? A tax on breathing? After all, air is a “resource”, no?
But these taxes have passed being just “taxing” – as in being “strenuous” – and are now intruding on our right to property – not to mention right to life. Back in the day, in the struggle for democracy and the rule of law, it was this same insistence on taxing everything in sight that created the US of A. Old King George III levied a tax on tea, which was where the American colonists drew the line.
They threw all the tea into the Boston Harbour and declared their independence from England!
When do we draw the line?
…in official exemptions
Even without prompting, City Hall had exempted Government employees and diplomats from parking fees. So what about the (literally) poor slobs who don’t even make enough to buy their daily bread?
“Let them eat cake!” declared our local Marie Antoinette, Mayor Chase-Green!!
