The Irfaan Ali-led PPP Government shepherding Guyana’s El Dorado destiny

Sir Walter Raleigh made two expeditions in search of El Dorado in the 1500s. He never found the City of Gold. More than 500 years later, it appears that he might have been right and that Guyana might well have been El Dorado, that City of Gold in the stories that were told in ancient times.
The world’s attention was glued to Guyana last week. Given that China had been hosting the Winter Olympics and that there has been genuine concern that Russia might be invading Ukraine, that Guyana garnered as much attention last week as it hosted an important international oil and gas conference is simply remarkable. Four Heads of State, dozens of big corporations represented by CEOs and senior officers, and TV stations and news reporters from around the world converged on Guyana for the conference last week. Guyanese at home and abroad could not help but be proud. A handful of naysayers could not spoil the pride and joy Guyanese felt last week.
The excitement right now has been driven, because Guyana is one of the most significant oil discoveries around the world in recent times. But the excitement is further intensified by how the Guyanese leaders have responded. Most developing countries where oil has been discovered almost immediately become oil and gas economies, abandoning previous economic platforms, such as agriculture. While oil and gas can single-handedly lead to prosperity for the country, this is not sustainable, and citizens in these countries remain no better-off than they were before oil. We see the poverty that exists still in Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Venezuela and other countries. Trinidad, next door, became the top economy and the richest of the Caricom countries. But these countries also failed to diversify their economies. Indeed, some gave up traditional economic platforms.
Instead of transforming Guyana’s economy to an oil economy, as most oil countries have done, Guyana’s leaders are ensuring that oil and gas is just one of the industries in a diversified economic platform. Guyana’s leaders, with President Irfaan Ali and Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo leading the way, have been wowing the world with a visionary physical, social and economic transformation programme. Guyana is showing that a major oil and gas industry can exist in a country alongside a low-carbon development trajectory. Agriculture was Guyana’s main economic activity as a colonial country. Since Independence, agriculture continued to be the main economic activity in the country. Unlike Venezuela, Equatorial Guinea, Trinidad and Tobago and other countries which either gave up on agriculture or downgraded agriculture, Guyana is intensifying its agriculture platform.
Guyana’s 2022 agriculture budget is one of the largest ever. At the same time, Guyana’s President is leading an agricultural transformation. President Irfaan Ali has called for a 25X25 food revolution in Caricom. Specifically, President Ali wants Caricom to reduce its food importation from outside of Caricom by 25 per cent by 2025. Guyana is targeting 1 million tons of rice in a few years, with marginal increase in rice acreage. In 2014, Guyana’s rice production reached 698,000 tons against a 2015 target of 700,000 tons. It did not happen as the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Government did everything to stall progress in agriculture. Even with climate change, Guyana is poised to achieve the target of 700,000 tons this year.
But Guyana is set to become a major soya bean and corn-producing country in the region. Already, Guyana has harvested corn and soya from a 111-acre farm in Ebini, with yields of more than 2.4 tons per acre. Guyana is now moving towards a 56,000 acreage for soya and corn production, with hopes to eliminate its US$25 million soya import bill. In addition, Guyana is looking to capture a significant share of the US$200 million soya market within Caricom. To this end, in 2021, there was a $500 million infrastructural investment to rehabilitate 18 kilometres of roadway starting from the junction of the Linden-Ituni road and heading east towards the Berbice River. Additional investments are in train for drying facilities and storage silos.
But the economy is being propelled with unprecedented manufacturing initiatives. In addition, to the food and beverage manufacturing industries, Guyana is now benefiting from enormous fabrication manufacturing and shore-based investments. The steel and iron fabrication investment of more than US$50 million in Enmore is just one example. Guyana is also expanding its mining for bauxite, manganese, gold and diamond. Recently, silica sand, used in the computer chip industry, has come into the equation, with more than US$37 billion in deposits to explore.
The opportunities keep growing. For this to materialise, Guyana’s energy requirement will be met from a mixed menu of energy projects, including the almost US$1 billion investment to produce a gas-and-steam energy project in the Wales area, the Amaila and other hydro projects and the wind farm at Hope. A small group of naysayers are obsessed with the oil contract. No doubt, Guyana could have signed a better deal. But the oil contract has led to an explosion of opportunities with incomes and earnings that together can dwarf the direct oil earnings. President Ali, VP Jagdeo and their government have refused to be bogged down by the angst of a bad oil contract. They have had the vision to turn a sour deal into sweet reward for Guyana and the Guyanese people.