For a country that has remained the poorest in the English speaking Caribbean and one of the poorest in the northern hemisphere notwithstanding its abundant agricultural and mineral, to say nothing of human resources, the prospect of our finding oil in the near future has generated an almost reckless optimism. For donkey years we have been utilising our land to grow sugar and, given some market variability, had a relatively decent market place for it in Europe. Indeed, the days were when we boasted of Guyanese being among the best sugar producers in the developing world and yet today we appear neither able to properly grow cane or manufacture sugar!
For decades our fore parents struggled and died in the mineral fields of Guyana, but to what end? A few persons may have become wealthy but the vast majority of our people have only been rewarded with poor health, education, security and other facilities. In its final days, the Hoyte regime adopted an approach which garnered some significant investments in these sectors and gave rise to levels of economic growth,
