Dear Editor,
Even the most cursory reading of oil related stories is enough to bring a tingle at the promised possibilities. On the heels of gushers of good news and good feelings, come some apprehensions: Are we going to poison this well, too? I look at possible pluses, and suggest some practical protective steps to save us from ourselves.
Likely benefits heard include: free cooking gas, cheap gasoline, and jobs galore. I agree. I foresee (and hope for) a modernized energy delivery mechanism (GPL) with all the attendant cascading, or trickledown, effects: cheap electricity, reliable supply, and an overall quality product and company.
On the other hand, amidst the pending South American (Arabian) nights and times, I dare to step forward to recommend a fistful of checks and balances to safeguard the Golden Fleece.
First, transparency must be paramount and sacred and non-negotiable. All revenue streams and expenses must be known and shared; all investments declared; all arrangements public. Any and every citizen must have access to all books and records, which are open and available at all times.
Second, industry and financial overseers must include both domestic and foreign bodies of impeccable pedigree. No suspect figures, please.
Third, oversight of this wasting asset must reside in the hands, minds, hearts, and eyes of as wide a cross-section of civil society as possible. I acknowledge that this civil society creature (genuine patriotic civil society) is part myth, part imagination, and part wishful thinking. Still, due to the absence of anything better and more palpable, then civil society, as existing is what it is. To repeat, any supervisory, supreme organ must be saturated with such citizens.
Fourth, this signifies that political representation must be minimal: PPP, PNC, APNU, AFC, and the rest of the local political alphabet soup must be a minority, if not nominal, collective presence. I would not trust something with one tenth the size of the projections in the hands of those who have failed every time given the chance.
Fifth, and in the same vein, the faces of any such civil society stewards must be new and fresh and independent, and lacking in the taint of prior official association. It cannot be what has been presented with some of the state boards and commissions. Or the probability of the old financial six-for-nine looms large.
It might even be one for nine, when history is examined. It is because this nation is now given an unprecedented and unparalleled opportunity to crawl out of the gutter and rise to some shadow of its potential. There is little room for mistakes, shenanigans, and skullduggery. Thus, it cannot be the same old, tired, attached, vacillating people, who are beholden to powerful people; and cannot stand on their own feet, or need help with intellect and ethics ‒ and the Ten Commandments.
As I write, I believe that most, if not all, of this will be scorned as unheard of, unworkable, and unacceptable. I assert that for these very reasons, and because they represent such a departure from the stale, failed, predictable norm that they should be considered and implemented. It is time that a different and radical route be now travelled; that there be less of the customary talk that leads to the same shabby money places; and that more citizens of a new stripe be involved.
Editor, the entire political history of this society has been one of tawdry financial self-dealing, when far lesser volumes of cash were involved. Therefore, I say, let there be the equivalent of concentric chastity belts around this richer prize. Let the temptations be lowered, if not removed.
Let this be done by separating the strong and well-intentioned (up to this point) from the source of what could transform them into fallen angels.
Trust me, and trust us is not good enough; not by a long shot. Structure and apparatus and independence are what will carry the day and salvage this place. All must be designed to watch closely, to police constantly, to confront ferociously, and to sound any alarms early. Early!
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
