Dear Editor,
Slumbering Winston Jordan awoke to write an informative piece on the APNU+AFC’s thinking behind Guyana’s Natural Resource Fund legislation and I must extend appreciation for the effort. Jordan correctly notes that there have been no amendments to the NRF Act (2019) to date and the power to spend from oil revenues still resides with the politicians. The Irfaan Ali administration views the structure of the NRFA which places the use of oil money solely in the hands of politicians as greatly flawed and has not spent a cent of the oil revenues to date and will not until the NRFA is amended to include input and oversight that is representative of all sectors of Guyanese. I believe this insistence on broad-based approval before expenditure is exactly why the PPP is in government and APNU+AFC is in hibernation; it is a stark contrast in thinking that divides the two political giants of Guyana’s political landscape; PPP’s frugality and the APNU’s profligacy.
The APNU+AFC mindset is also exposed to scrutiny when Jordan des-cribes PPP campaign manifesto promises as “implausible”. Given the failure of the Granger administration to deliver on its 100-day plan during the five years in office, I can only assume Jordan is of the view that promises made on a campaign trail are not binding; the Irfaan Ali administration does, and despite urging from myself to deliver the promised 50K School grant utilizing oil revenues, Presi-dent Ali has stood his ground and refused to touch the resource fund until safeguards and full transparency are in place; had Jordan set up the NRF to be used genuinely for the benefit of all the people of the nation, our schoolchildren would have benefited from the full amount promised already. It is to the credit of the Ali administration that so much has been done for so many without the use of our oil resource fund.
I am not minded to give much credence to Jordan’s pronouncements on macroeconomic issues given his kindergarten view that ExxonMobil gave an 18 Million USD “gift” for signing the 2016 production sharing agreement, nor am I willing to concede that a loan of 1.5 Billion USD for infrastructure is beyond Guyana’s payback capability (with or without oil revenue). Jordan’s perspective stems from his work with the Granger administration, for that, I commiserate; but I suggest Winston Jordan should wake up, smell the coffee and look at all the progress the Ali administration has made in fifteen short months.
Sincerely,
Robin Singh
