‘Guyana’s oil boom will be judged by equal opportunity, not barrels’ – Pres. Ali

President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali has declared that the true measure of Guyana’s development will not be found in oil production figures, but in whether every Guyanese citizen, including those in the country’s most remote Amerindian communities, has access to the same opportunities as those in the capital.

Addressing an audience of investors, energy executives and operators at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston, Texas, the president stated that the future of Guyana is grounded in a multi-faceted economic diversification strategy.

He said revenues from the oil and gas operations are being deliberately channelled into investments that create sustainable and people-centred prosperity.

“We’re investing in tools and mechanisms that will optimise the potential of our people,” he said, “give them a high quality of life, and open up opportunities for them.”

The government has been investing in roads, airstrips, and health facilities in the hinterland, connecting Indigenous communities to essential services that have eluded them for decades. Those investments, President Ali said, are now unlocking Guyana’s untapped eco-tourism potential, while simultaneously improving the quality of life for communities in remote regions.

Education has been another major area of investment. The government has made university education free, removing the financial barriers that historically prevented many young Guyanese from accessing tertiary studies.

Complementing this, a specialised STEM centre, developed in partnership with ExxonMobil, is being rolled out nationwide to expose children from an early age to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. This will help build the human capital pipeline Guyana will need to sustain its diversified economy.

“Just imagine a country in deep-sea drilling that had to send all of its human capital out of its shores to be trained. Today, you can train all of them in Guyana and offer that training to the rest of the world. That is what I call strategic positioning,” he highlighted.

In healthcare, President Ali emphasised investment in top-tier facilities, aiming to make health services a national asset and an export-focused sector that draws regional patients and practitioners.

For local businesses and families, the government has moved to ensure they are not spectators in the country’s growth. The Guyana Development Bank has been tasked with unlocking financing for small and medium enterprises, reducing interest rates, and easing collateral requirements to bring more Guyanese into the economic mainstream.

“The measure of Guyana’s success will not be how many barrels we produce. The world will forget that number in 50 years,” he said. “The measure will be: did a child born in a remote indigenous village have access to the same opportunity as a child born in Georgetown? Did a farmer get cheaper fertiliser and reliable electricity? Did a small manufacturer get a chance to compete? Did the forests still stand? Did the people still own their future?”

Local content legislation further reinforces this, mandating that opportunities generated by the oil sector flow back into the domestic economy.

Underpinning all of it is the Natural Resource Fund (NRF), which, by law, requires the government to disclose all oil revenue within 30 days publicly.

This transparency mechanism, the president noted, creates public pressure, but one he said the administration manages by keeping its focus on long-term, wealth-creating investments rather than short-term cash transfers.

“We prefer to invest in opportunities that create wealth, in the development of human capital and infrastructure, social safety nets that allow our people not to lose their own capacity to be innovative, hard workers, and to be builders, rather than waiters,” President Ali said.

He confidently dismissed the dependency model, asserting that an economy reliant on cash transfers instead of creating opportunities is fundamentally unsustainable. [DPI]