National assets register should be made public to help Gov’t become transparent in dealing with multinational exploitation of Guyana’s wealth

Dear Editor, Mr. Mike Rahman’s concerns to ‘protect us from the transnational companies - ExxonMobil and others - which are set to exploit us’ in his letter in SN May 27, 2017 underlines the divide between the haves and have-nots in Guyana and also Guyana versus the developed world. What could Guyana do to minimize exploitation and eke out the resources that it needs to develop the well-being of its citizens?

The answer to this question lies in taking stock of Guyana’s natural resources, who owns what, especially the major assets that the Guyana government had advertised to big companies planning to industrialize and develop Guyana.

By this time, from more than a

decade ago a cadastral survey should be in place for analysts in the public and private sector and the international community to evaluate leases, ownership rights, and the benefits and costs of using each parcel of Guyana’s properties namely - gold fields- diamond fields- oil fields- rice fields- cane fields- other fields, estates, and forests

The national cadastral of assets should be made public in order to help Govern-ment become transparent in dealing with multinational exploitation of Guyana’s natural wealth. The payments for the lease, use, transformation and distribution of moneys should also be made public so that Guyanese could understand the determinants of success or failure, indeed the depths of exploitation and poverty.

A register of the vast quantities of square miles of Guyana’s forests, gold fields, diamond fields and now oil fields appearing on the balance sheets of mining and exploration companies should be researched and assessed to determine whether or not Guyana benefits significantly from the exploitation of its assets.

Big offshore companies in mining have listed Guyana’s assets on their balance sheets and raised significant amounts of financial capital. Much of this capital raised in the name of Guyana’s gold, diamond, and now possibly oil are drip fed into the local economy or not at all. Meanwhile, the massive amounts of financial capital raised stays abroad with the big companies, earning interest income in offshore accounts. Such funds are used to pay company officials and their political sponsors in offshore accounts, really ‘free money’. For example, Guyana’s land leases were traded in Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto and New York. Parallel investment accounts to contain interest and dividends were also set up in wellknown offshore countries in the Caribbean. There was no accountability to the authorities in the national budgets regarding these funds and their investment accounts. These are the spinoffs that multinationals harvest while they keep the local people hoping for a better life from real onshore investments.

Guyana is now at the crossroads to make financial and investment matters transparent and seek a better deal for its citizens in the hidden processes of exploitation of its natural resources.

Yours faithfully, Ganga Ramdas