Citing the political and ethnic divide in the country, economist Tarron Khemraj and political analyst Ralph Ramkarran say that co-operation between the two major parties is required if Guyana is to escape the natural resource curse that could threaten benefits from the impending oil economy.
In his Business Page column in yesterday’s Sunday Stabroek, Khemraj argued that the projects necessary for escaping the curse will require political cooperation.
He said some kind of arrangement will be required to allow both the elites of the PNCR and PPP/C to claim joint ownership of the big ticket infrastructure projects and any future new industry outside the oil and gas sector. He posited that having first-world infrastructure will not necessarily change the structure of exports and production, but is a necessary start. In spite of the developed physical infrastructure of an established oil economy like Trinidad and Tobago, Khemraj said that that country still depends on oil and gas for most of its export earnings.
