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…
If we want to say something about the future state of an event, we have to account for the initial conditions. Given that we live in a complex world, the outcomes often depend on the initial conditions. It is possible that one initial condition could produce multiple outcomes, making the task of prediction fraught with…
Guyana’s Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) with ExxonMobil’s subsidiary, Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL), for the Stabroek Block has fielded major criticisms for a range of provisions, or the lack thereof, which are disastrous for Guyana.Now, Darshanand Khusial has stated that a failure to define “market rate” as it is stated in the Contract…
Guyana is responsible for paying the interest on the oil companies’ loans. This fact is buried in the Production Sharing Agreements (PSA). (Stabroek Block PSA, Annex C Section 3.1 part (l)). The interest rate to be paid is loosely noted as “market rate”. This flaw may cost Guyana billions of US dollars. It takes just…
There have been several lofty predictions of gross revenues that the Guyana government is likely to receive. For example, Rystad Energy recently announced that the government will earn over US$100 billion in oil revenues from the Stabroek block alone. However, it is important to note that the gross oil revenue the government is expected to…
Under Melinda Janki’s letter (SN: 18/08/19), I asked several questions: What royalties are we getting on one million barrels of oil? Is it 250 barrels or 2,000 barrels? Is the royalty assessed on barrels sold? If only 1,000 barrels are sold, does this mean royalty would be assessed and paid on only 1,000 barrels? Mr…
The city parking meters galvanised the people of Georgetown. Irrespective of race or political party, they came out to protest against the implementation of the meters. The major newspapers in Guyana covered the protests, giving nationwide visibility to the issue. The pressure was sufficient to get the meters removed. The debacle turned the passion in…
Many Guyanese are now aware of some version of the natural resource curse (NRC). One taxi driver explained the idea to me last week and he also gave the Dutch disease a good shot. Economists have been pondering these ideas for at least three decades. They, however, tend not outline the transmission mechanisms of the…
On the weekend, the media reported on a real time facial recognition and facial tracking system to be deployed for 24 hours surveillance in Georgetown and the East Bank of Demerara. It was described by a government official as, “…one of the best developments for our country…”.This facial recognition technology has been banned in San…
How would you use data to explain that this is a fair contract to the average Guyanese? On Thursday July 18th, the Stabroek News published an interview of Mr Henson, ExxonMobil Country Manager. Mr Henson is quoted as saying, “The contract is a fair contract. It absolutely is a fair contract given the risk profile…
