Dear Editor,
Bill gets semi sad when the time comes to leave his mother’s land (and grandmother’s and great grandmother’s too.200 years in the colony). Sad but hopeful this time. The oil boom is here. Many Guyanese pretend it is not. But take a trip to a roadside bar in Houston EBD. Talk to some of the men in green overalls. They are actively disposing of the detritus of the offshore rigs; mud and simple garbage. But, doing it onshore for ‘environmental reasons’. Hmm.
But the new opportunities are there. My man in green had made it from dock porter to supervisor. Oil will generate jobs for the Guyanese boys and girls. Sadly, many of them will be grunt jobs initially. Guyana needs to upskill the tech of its workers. Fast. The new training schools in Berbice are a start though one has a long way to go. The principal designate, was Bill told, shocked at the pile of mud from which he has to craft a 21st century tech training facility. He knows his onions from abroad so will achieve it.
But what of the huge investments like the Enmore sugar packaging factory re-emerging as high tech oil engineering. Plenty questions about the idea of the scheme and the movers and shakers. How much due diligence was done in advance? That will not be an outlier. Who is auditing the joint ventures and their claimed sources, indeed amounts, of capital? Big risks, big failures to come,
And just where is the national conversation about oil and society? Not in the rarified air of Moray House or the other Georgetown salons. Not in the rum shops and speakeasies that Bill frequents. Not on Guytelly. Plenty up and down ‘Mr. X said’ stories. Little analysis, little learning from others. Who will fire the starting gun for the National Oil Conversation? It is long overdue. Instead of ‘One laptop (now broken.) per family why not one copy of OIL Dorado? per family. Spread the knowledge.
So Bill is hopeful that Guyana can ride the crest of the oil wave to benefit more than a privileged few. But it is up to you dear citizen to have your voice heard loud and clear and not drowned out by the shouters, Bill will watch with interest from his father’s’ land. The future is bright, the future is black gold. Pip! Pip!
Sincerely,
John ‘Bill Cotton/Reform’ Mair
