…vs the golden goose
The new PPPC Government is doing its darndest to get “Local Content” Legislation in place, so that Guyanese will at long last – five years after oil was struck – be able to force the operators in the new sector to make sure we get a piece of the action. And that is what “Local Content” is all about: it’s to ensure that what happened in the bauxite business doesn’t happen here…the operators came, dug holes in ground, shipped the bauxite out, left us with holes in the ground, and left us to fend for ourselves pretty much in the middle of the jungle. We have to get employment and training etc from the oil companies.
Now, none of this was any secret to the PNC. They’d hired an expert in the field from TT – a country which had been pumping oil since the seventies – to give them the lowdown on how TT was able to develop itself over there. He gave then two drafts of a policy document, but they threw them into the bin, and then hired a fella who’d been working for the oil company to tell them how to get more from the oil company!! Can you believe it??
But let’s get real, folks. Over in Trinidad, the oil industry – even at its peak – never employed more than 4% of the TT workforce. And most of their oil and gas were pumped right on shore!! With all our FPSOs sitting more than a hundred miles out at sea, and with most everything automated, they might as well be on the moon. So, while we definitely must get as much as we can, let’s not believe Local Content will solve our unemployment problems.
And let’s not even think we can supply them with meat. Are we ready to age, say, beef for the recommended days in freezers to satisfy the “foreign” palates??
Point of the matter is that we better start looking for some money immediately from our oil find, to pump into our economy – and your Eyewitness isn’t even thinking about the measly drips being deposited into the NY Fed from our even more measly 2+12% share that Trotman signed on to. But that is what has always bothered your Eyewitness: everyone assumes that Trotman was just “inexperienced”. Really?? Inexperienced?? Didn’t he boast of doing International Diplomacy and negotiation at Fletcher??
It’s far more likely he imitated the ruler of Equatorial Guinea, who was able to secrete US$700M from oil company payments in US bank accounts!! How? Let’s ask Trotman. If it looks like a goose, walks like a goose, and squawks like a goose, you can be darned sure it’s a goose – who’s put away quite a few golden eggs!!
The new Government should immediately follow the money and return it to Guyana.
US$700 million should put a dent in our unemployment rate!!
…Volda
Volda Lawrence, Chairwoman of the PNC, who wasn’t sent back to Parliament by David Granger, whom she’d helped bring into the party to place him at the helm, showed up in court yesterday. She’d been charged, along with Mingo, to answer criminal charges for forging the elections results to show the PNC winning. She was willing to have David Granger remain as President, but he didn’t only snub her on the MP appointment, he didn’t even show up to give moral support at the courts!! Cooooold…that’s what it was!!
But her base in the ghetto didn’t forget her. They thronged the court, totally oblivious to the COVID-19 rules, and we’re told they were carrying on with all kinds of cussin’ down, screaming, “We want we Modda!!”
It was quite reminiscent of Volda’s performance at Ashmin’s just before she committed the forgery!!
…and party-hopping
The WPA assumed that when Granger chose Sarabo-Halley as an MP, he thought they weren’t a “cardboard” party like Keith Scott’s NFA; so, they quit the coalition for “non-consultation”, only to have Sarabo-Halley quit the WPA and join the PNC!! Cold!!
