Early Saturday morning, Nigel Hinds and a number of his colleagues were in Guyana handing out food to the homeless. We saw several pictures on the world- wide Internet. We find the pictures very moving. But more than that: they capture for us a sense of incompetence and negligence by the Government of Guyana.
Given we are a few years into the oil discovery, there is no reason we should have folks homeless and starving at this point. As Jan Mangal pointed out in his June 1st letter in another newspaper, discussing licensing of Oil Fields, Guyana should have received a signing bonus of US$1 billion. As Jan said, “….forfeiting nearly US$1 billion that could have been used to build schools, hospitals, homes, roads, bridges, and to better the pay of hardworking Guyanese”.
It is timely to recall that 30% of Guyanese live on US$2 a day. Let’s say that is 225,000 Guyanese. A US$1 billion signing bonus should mean there would be at least US$4,000+ available to each of them. How much food and shelter would that buy? Surely, enough for them to live at least one year in dignity.
Once again we call on the GoG to renegotiate the Oil Contracts. Write a letter and ask the CEOs of the Oil Companies to come back to the table. This is not a suggestion or threat of litigating the terms of the Contracts in a Court of Law. Just plain renegotiation – where GoG can make the case for a Fair Deal. For starters – GoG cannot, must not pay taxes for the Oil Companies to itself out of the share of profits due to the GoG. This item in the Contract among several others must be expunged from the Contract, if only because it is an insult to the intelligence of the Guyanese people. The Oil Companies must be required to pay Corporate Income taxes to the host government as they do in other countries around the world.
Yours truly,
Mike Persaud (New York)
Darsh Khusial (Toronto)
