Culture of bribes, patronage, nepotism could strangle Guyana, Suriname oil wealth dream

Arthur Deakin

The elimination of systematic corruption, which is present in both Guyana and Suriname, is crucial to the two countries realizing their socioeconomic dreams from their respective multi-billion barrel oil fortunes, according to Arthur Deakin, a Co-Director of American Market Intelligence (AMI), in an article published earlier this week by News Source in New York.

This week’s article follows an earlier one by Deakin in which he frowned on what is believed to be the incumbent political administration’s preference for a Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) similar to that employed by the Central Asia Republic of Kazakhstan.

The issue of the option that Guyana should employ in its choice of a SWF for the management of the country’s oil earnings has, in recent weeks, attracted some measure of public comment locally.