As you dear readers would know, your Eyewitness is a dyed-in-the-wool patriot. He’s drank enough “black-water” from the creeks -not to mention that potent dark and full-bodied elixir from our sugar cane! – that he ain’t going nowhere but here. Then again his “navel-string chook” right here also. So he wants what’s best for his native land. And when he heard that oil was struck, he was so ecstatic he raised his hands to the skies (heaven?) and gave thanks. At long last some real money would be flowing into our coffers. Free at last!! Free at last!! Thank god almighty, we were all gonna be free at last!!
Now he doesn’t have to recount what happened between oil being struck and us getting our fair share, does he? Well, seems he does. Your Eyewitness is as upset as anyone else that we got the short end of the stick. So he understands and sympathizes with those who feel that we ought to’ve gotten a better deal. What he can’t understand is focusing the angst against the government to renegotiate the contract!! The problem with that, of course, is you gotta have to grounds to get into the Court door!! The starting point in any such attempt is to overcome the fundamental principle in these matters – the sanctity of contracts! How do we get past that?
One is if Guyana’s negotiator – Raphael Trotman – was a child or imbecile so that there wasn’t the requisite “meeting of minds”!! Was he? Well the activists out to look into that! Another tack is to show there were some illegalities involved. Was there? That group “Global Witness” that first exposed the dirty deal we got – and calculated we lost some US$55Billion – suggested as much. Did all those 5-star hotels and restaurants for Trotty qualify as “bribes”? We’re there any deposits in Washington Banks – like with that US$800M for President of Equatorial Guinea? More mundanely, Global recounted that Trotman didn’t consult the experts assigned to him nor actually read the fine print.
Shouldn’t the activists look into that?
Then Trotty himself excused his culpability by saying that he was “told” to sign along the dotted line. Who was that masked man?? Maybe that was the person who was bribed? Shouldn’t the activists look into that?? But all we get from this new band of patriots – another “group” was launched just today! – is that the Government must tug Exxon’s tail. They seem to forget that Exxon’s mascot – “Tony the Tiger” – may present that happy go lucky image in their ads, but still got teeth!!
C’mon guys, you know what to do when your hand is in “tigah mout’”?
…the development strings
Some folks are wondering why our leaders are jetting off to UAE – especially Dubai – to get them involved with our development plans. Didn’t we now have a money spigot of our own now? We’re told we might get as much as US$200 million from next month’s oil shipment!! But, dear readers, the thing is – just having money doesn’t guarantee development. It all boils down to what you do with that money. Just ask Venezuela or Nigeria if you want details!! They’ve been pumping oil for decades without making that big breakthrough!!
The question, though, is whether the UAE is the model we should be using. In these (development) matters you gotta start with what you got. Singapore had no natural resources or land but had been the center of the British Navy operations. So they built on their wharves to form first a shipping hub, then, banking and telecommunications hubs etc. The USE is desert and they picked tourism.
Can they help with our Agri-diversification?
…war’s folly
Whatever Putin’s rationale might’ve been to invade Ukraine, surely he didn’t want to displace more than half of its children into misery and refugee hood.
These will become implacable enemies of Russia into the next generation.
