Dear Editor,
It was refreshing to read about a good catch from Mr Pravinchandra Dave, that seasoned banker, who wrote on the topic of leveraging the opportunity for Guyana on the possible buy-back of the oil debt from Venezuela at a deep discount (‘Venezuela might sell all its oil debt – including that of Guyana – to Goldman Sachs,’ SN, December 4). As Mr Dave correctly confirmed, Venezuela is close to sealing the deal with Goldman Sachs to ‘front as cash’ some 41% of the oil debt due from the Dominican Republic (DR) in exchange for Goldman Sachs taking control of 100% of the US$4 billion PetroCaribe oil debt due from the DR to Venezuela. But this is no good deal for the people of the DR since they will still have to pay 100% of the debt back with interest.
A better deal as alluded to by Mr Dave is for Georgetown at the highest level to engage Caracas. I foresee Guyana fronting 50 per cent of the oil debt in cash to the Bolivarian Republic in exchange for a full and complete write-off of the oil debt.
This is not politics, this is basic business. All of Guyana will line up behind the government if it attempts to seal this deal, since it is the Guyanese people who will gain rather than the merchants of Wall Street. It is time the PPP reach out to people like Carl Greenidge, Shridath Ramphal, Chris Ram and their own internal negotiators to assemble a team that can see us immediately paying about US$90 million to write off US$180 million in debt. That will save the Guyanese people some US$90 million that can be pumped into more programmes to improve the well-being of our people. “Because we care”!
Yours faithfully,
Sase Singh
