By Raphael Trotman MP,
Minister of Natural Resources
Many adjectives and superlatives can be used to describe today’s happenings not just what is unfolding at this instant at the Georgetown Marriott, but overall, I am speaking about what is taking place within Guyana and around the world following on the announcement of a ‘significant’ discovery 200 km offshore Guyana’s territorial waters – “historic”, “transformational”, “transcendental”, “outstanding”, “stupendous”, and “exciting” are some words which spring to mind and have been used. For me, I believe that the coming oil production is all these and even more.
The 2015 discovery, and the economic fortunes it portends for Guyana, has to be seen against a backdrop of centuries of the enslavement of Africans, decades of indentureship of East Indians, Chinese, Portuguese, and the displacement of perhaps millions of our first people, the Amerindians. Political independence in 1966,
