While we have been receiving oil revenues since 2019, all Guyanese would concede – whatever their take on the state of our statistics – that poverty in our country remains quite widespread. Unquestionably, between 1992 and 2015, the PPP Government worked diligently under the ministrations of the IMF -which they inherited from the PNC because of their unsustainably high debt – to reduce that horrendous poverty rate. But while we ascended the World Bank ratings from a Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) to an Upper Middle-Income Country (UMIC), this also raised the classification of our poverty rate. For an UMIC, this is the percentage of the population subsisting at below US$5.50 daily – in our case 48% as of 2019, during the APNU regime.
The PPP Government has committed to using the oil revenues to develop and diversify our economy, to create sustainable growth when the oil runs out in about three decades, at the present estimates of reserves and plan of depletion. There have been several critiques of the Government’s focus at this stage of its development plan, that focuses on infrastructure – roads, bridges, highways etc to “open up the country” and attract businesses that would provide jobs in all regions. While the legislated and implemented local content requirements have created a large number of jobs, most of these demand specific skills that take time to be inculcated. In the meantime, it is obvious that even though the Government has also implemented large-scale training programmes, it will take some time for the poverty rate to be decreased significantly – especially in rural and hinterland regions.
One proposal from an Opposition party is that the Government should disburse annual cash grants of US$5000 per household – with no needs test. This would expend more than US$1 billion annually with no guarantee that the money would be used sustainably. This has not found favour, and the thrust for a sustainable reduction of poverty continues unabatedly. One exciting area is the embarking on a massive drive to create mega-farms in our Intermediate and Interior Savannahs to produce food and grains to fulfil the “25 by 25” Caricom plan to reduce food imports by 25% by 2025. This initiative, however, demands massive capital investments in infrastructure for transportation, drainage and irrigation. Another area that needs massive investment is to produce low-cost electricity to attract manufacturing plants and open up the need for unskilled workers. All of these initiatives demand massive capital expenditures, which can come from our oil revenues. Loans are more easily sourced because of the cash flow from those oil revenues to service them.
But there has appeared another point of view on those revenues, that has astounded most Guyanese but perversely gains traction in one segment of the press that is doggedly opposed to the Government. These Guyanese, who generally reside abroad, have been gripped by the climate hysteria in the west that evidently blinds them to the priorities of any Guyanese Government to its people. They demand that we leave all our oil under the Atlantic, since their hysteria is created by the prediction that unless carbon dioxide emissions – which are primarily produced by the combustion of fossil fuels – are reduced to Net Zero by 2030, we will reach a tipping point beyond which humanity is doomed.
Now, climate change and global warming are real, and are created by fossil fuels’ use. But the question must be – whose responsibility is it to reduce it, and what are they doing about it? Was the problem created by us in Guyana? Certainly not. It was created by the same developed countries in which the “leave the oil in the ground” lobby lives. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do anything to try to stop temperatures from rising above a certain limit. Our forests act as a net carbon sink, apart from our commitment to create hydro and solar power plants. But if our aim is to actually save lives, we have a greater moral obligation to those in our country who die in large numbers because of poverty.
