Ever since the PPP were finally allowed to assume office – which was being denied them by the PNC’s barefaced attempt to rig the 2020 elections – they started executing the Manifesto on which they’d been elected. This has always been their practice: a manifesto is a contract they made with the people when they went to the polls. So, it was no surprise when – early on – they announced they were considering a modular refinery that would be able to supply our needs for petroleum products – now and going forward. With their throwing up highways here, there and everywhere…isn’t there gonna be a commensurate number of vehicles hitting asphalt?? And no matter what Elon Musk says, most of them will be demanding gas to turn those engines!!
There was one local businessman who’d already indicated to the old PNC Government back in 2018 that he wanted to set up such a refinery. And knowing from where the breeze was blowing, he told them he was gonna locate it at Linden. He’d budgeted some US$100 million, he claimed. Never mind he would’ve been adding to his expenses the cost of transporting the crude oil up the Linden Highway!! Anyhow, that proposal went nowhere – even as he resuscitated it when the PPP came into office. But that also somehow disappeared into the wind.
Well, when the PPP asked for expressions of interest in 2022, they’d already indicated they were looking to locate it at Crab Island in the Berbice River. Clearly, the Deep-Water Harbour they’d persuaded CGX to build there was to facilitate shipments of crude in – and shipments of refined products out. It was in the plans, baby!! So, when Pres Ali visited the Dominican Republic (DR) and signed an MOU for an oil refinery and a petrochemical plant that would produce urea for agricultural production, with the DR having a stake of over 51% in both projects, no one should’ve been surprised!
Now we can see the Government’s strategic plan – which should give the critics of the refinery something to chew on. Right off the bat, the naysayers came out ranting and screaming about the polluting threats from refining; the costs; and the long-term viability. But DR will be putting in most of the capital; providing markets for some of the refined products; and, critically, will provide our agricultural thrust with urea!! And the contract will be for thirty years!!
The naysayers conveniently forget that, as far as pollution’s concerned, in the grand scheme of things, because of our massive forests, we’re still a net carbon sink!! And we’d be saving on our largest need for foreign currency by cutting off petroleum products’ importation!! TAKE THAT, doom and gloomers!!
…freedom??
This Emancipation Day, your Eyewitness tasted the bitter aftertaste of “what might’ve been”. What might’ve been if a less unprincipled cad and bounder than Burnham had acceded to power? Lee Kwan Yu wrote in his book, “From Third World to First”, how at the time of independence he envied the British colonies in the West Indies.
We had everything, he said. Resources; location in the West; an educated ruling class etc, etc. But as the years went by, he noted, while the latter was “educated”, they loved to talk more than to do. They were “men of words” and not “men of action”. He marvelled how he’d meet them at Heads of Commonwealth Meetings and they’d spout all sorts of theories of “underdevelopment” and “colonialism” etc…but just wouldn’t do a single realistic thing to actually free their countries.
And we still have that quality in the present lot of PNC leaders. They’re all just talkers, not doers. And bullies!!
…a national dress
And for real emancipation, the observers should’ve given a plaque to Schuman for standing up for the true meaning of emancipation. No more being stuck with imitating the erstwhile masters’ sartorial choices.
The man let it all hang out!! If we’re to be emancipated, shouldn’t we all??
