Unite in dealing with transnational corporation

Dear Editor,
One of the benefits that the leaders and the people of the region had hoped was that with the creation of CARICOM, the regional governments would have been acting together. This is very important since we are relatively small individually and in terms of our population. Therefore, acting on issues jointly would enhance the influence of the region internationally.
Moreover, CARICOM has the potential of increasing our bargaining power greatly, when dealing with multi-national corporations and large countries.
This is more important at this stage in our region’s development.
At this time, Guyana has become a major producer of oil and gas. Trinidad & Tobago, which has been producing oil for more than a hundred years has depleted a lot of their reserve. They are now looking for more in the deep waters. Suriname has also found oil and gas and will begin production soon. Recently in the news is that Jamaica and Grenada have joined the hunt for the black gold.
We know that Guyana in 2016 got a very poor deal. In passing, it is still a mystery why the then government did not involve Trinidad specialists during the negotiations to begin production.
That as it may, we now have a situation where three of our countries are oil and gas producers (Guyana, T&T and Suriname). Others may join soon.
It would be in the interest of our countries individually and for the region collectively if we can work out a common regime to deal with the huge corporations that are descending on the region. This would prevent the Oil giants from playing us off against each other.
Just as we have a Common External Tariff, we should develop a common investment regime in our natural resource sector.
This is important for Guyana and Suriname which has similar resources.
If this could be achieved then the people of our region will benefit more from our natural resources and integration in CARICOM could be deepened.

Sincerely,
Donald Ramotar
Former President