By Raffique Shah
November 05, 2024

My recent column in which I applauded Guyana President Irfaan Ali for sharing some of the petro-dollars with all citizens of that country appears to have suggested that I support such “share the wealth” schemes. I make it abundantly clear that that was never my intention. Indeed I have often lashed my own government for wanton waste of our wealth through a range of programmes and initiatives.

It is commonplace worldwide, except for a few mostly developed countries, for political parties, when they are in power, to invent all kinds of schemes, awards, programmes, etc, through which they seek to tighten their grip on power, using state-funded programmes to buy them votes. There is hardly a Third World country that is not included in this broad-brush description, and many developed and supposedly respectable countries fall prey to similar sophisticated schemes.

In Guyana’s case, they are now cashing in on huge oil deposits and can readily afford to look generous. President Ali and his colleagues knew they would encounter no resistance from the masses and even from the main opposition party, what with elections due within another year or so. The award per citizen is approximately TT$4,000 or US$600. That is petty cash for today’s Guyana that ranks among the top five biggest oil producers and exporters in the world. Recently, its production topped 600,000 barrels a day, so that is like pulling raw dollars, US dollars if you please; that is their heritage.

How you choose to spend it is your “damn business”, as the late Dr Eric Williams would say to anyone from outside who dared intervene in our domestic affairs. I am not suggesting President Ali or anyone else who has the authority, or who may win such authority, should do what they will with the people’s newfound wealth; it should remain within constitutional boundaries.

I will use the reopening of this discussion to remind all our Caribbean leaders that overspending their wealth in order to retain power never works outright in the short or long term. Indeed many Guyanese are among recipients of what accountants in T&T refer to as “transfers and subsidies”—a multi-billion-dollar network of programmes and agencies through which TT petrodollars flow into the pockets and accounts of ordinary working class people who do not necessarily have to work for it. This network is controlled by a few wealthy contractors as well as politicians and business people. In other words, corruption. That is dangerous for lickerish beasts.

I should think that President Ali is aware of this dangerous path and would seek to avoid it in every way possible. Besides its immense oil wealth, Guyana sits at a strategic point on the vast continent of South America. This includes all the countries that have felt the murderous arms of the biggest drug mafia of the western world with the opening of several new highways and shipping lanes and ports from Chile to Vancouver, Canada. Developments are moving apace, except for the elusive single highway that will run from North, through Central and into South America but for the same cartels and treacherous terrains.

The governments of this vast western world—we in the Caribbean fall within its grid, too—know the excessive danger we face from the powerful cartels. Guyana is virgin country in this regard, to the extent that there has not been a huge drug consumption problem, nor has the war for control spilled over yet. I’m sure that most of the governments are aware of this threat. Sitting as it does on the north coast of South America atop huge jungles and myriad port possibilities, that country becomes a target any which way you look at it.

I shan’t stick my short neck out to meddle in plans that have nothing to do with me. Suffice it to say that as the oil dollars pile up in vaults around the world the temptation for mischief, murderous mischief, is palpable. Already countries as once-stable T&T are feeling the heat through the hundreds, maybe thousands of gangsters, hitmen who have us reeling with daily body counts.

Guyana does not necessarily have to adopt “Don’t give a damn, we done dead already” that was the fatalistic stance that was attributed to its one-time president, Forbes Burnham. As it approaches general elections, it needs to ensure that the voting process does not descend into riots, arson and even murder. Thus far, President Ali has steered a steady ship of state that seems to have united the tribes who once had problems sharing the country in an equitable fashion. Ali managed that with his one-off grant.

He now faces the challenge of holding Guyanese together. It won’t be easy. There are always elements of discord, against which he has to be seen as a fair and just statesman who offers mature leadership.