OPINION: Guyana: from next Dubai to a new Qatar, a few thoughts

Last Updated on Monday, 12 August 2024, 22:52 by Writer

by GHK Lall

I like it. As a Guyanese, how can I not like Guyana as the ‘new Qatar’. From Guyana being the ‘next Dubai to the ‘new Qatar’ certainly has the sound of music to it. But to be either, I must warn that it is not a frolic across the hills. The hills may be ablaze with promise but there must be a will (and the skill) to be either Dubai or Qatar to any degree. What do the facts on the ground say?

Guyanese used to hear a lot about being the next Dubai and Guyana being the Dubai on the Demerara. Some clouds drifted over that one, obscuring that exuberant vision. I still like it. Now, the new song in town is about Guyana being the ‘new Qatar.’ Thinking of this, I wonder whether that is a step up or a step down. That is, reconfiguring and managing expectations better. In terms of Dubai, the Guyana skyline and shoreline are taking shape, and with more record budgets likely, and more record infrastructure spending in the making, Guyana is gaining some ground on being the next Atlantis. I hear things are mighty expensive in Dubai. The significance of this for cash-strapped, stomach-shrunk, spirit-sapped Guyanese struggling to cope with putting food on the table does not look inviting, when one thinks of the implications of this country being the next Dubai. I absorb the mulling and the juggling and soul-searching going on inside the teachers’ union (GTU) and have a question: how much of a difference does a 10% pay hike (without appropriate supporting incentives as part of a satisfactory package) is going to make in a society that fights a losing battle with already steep and continually spiraling prices? Food prices, I specify. Basic vittles, to be still more specific. I am staring at the specter of a country (the next Dubai) with an abundance of physical monuments, and an army of hungry beggars. Glossy promotional brochures, foreign investors glistening with energy and cash and all swarming to Guyana in hopes of the next big strike. That’s one side of the picture. The hidden side, the duller one, is of those locals lining up outside the US Embassy with their own forlorn hopes: obtaining a coveted visa to hustle a living in the warzones of New York City. Something is fundamentally wrong – embarrassing and enraging, disdainful and disappointing – with that image of Guyana and the now ancient chatter of being the next Dubai. Perhaps, the sights were set too high.

Today the talk of a new Qatar; so, Guyana goes from Dubai to Doha. As projections and comparisons go, no one should find fault with this scaled down description. Dubai is all gleaming metropolis, a glass and steel mirage rising out of the barren desert, but one that is very real. Qatar, on the other hand, is slower, softer, and could be sweeter, if one favors an old school existence. In both places, crime is almost nonexistent, and income taxes do even better: none. Thinking of the last two planks in Guyana’s existence, are we still talking about the next Dubai and a new Qatar? It goes without saying that both places are magnets for foreigners. Guyana has caught on quickly to that state of mind. Wages are high and cost of living is high, but no income tax offsets some of the latter. Guyanese lose out on two of the three: wages are low, income taxes are, well, where they are: a big dent in a deep hole made by a punishing cost of living environment.

What’s the point of all that I am laying out for both places? The comparisons and projections are intoxicating, whether Guyana being the next Dubai or the new Doha (Qatar). But I think that instead of exciting soundbites, a sober revisiting of Guyana’s present state (realities) would be helpful. The people doing most of the grunt work in Dubai and Qatar are poorly paid migrants in the country with a spectacular GDP. Here, the formula is reversed, with poor Guyanese forced to be content with poor man’s work for poor wages. It is energizing to hear that Guyana is sold as a ‘new’ Qatar. But how with brick and bitumen only? There are still too many Guyanese compelled to use their six-month visitor’s visa in America to labor (‘ketch deh haan’) to live at some standard here. Foreigners are coming here in small platoons to hit it big, yet Guyanese are flocking to the hard pastures of Brooklyn and Queens, New York, to work at the bottom of the labor ladder. With the advent of oil five years ago, what is different from the years of Burnham (and which continued under Jagan) when Guyanese still see their future, or ease in their present probability of survival by passing through JFK International? How can I not thrill to the evaluations and visions for Guyana, be they of local or foreign origins, with Dubai and Qatar mentioned in the same sentence, if not breath? By the same token, I cannot be blindfolded to the plight of Guyanese struggling to get by amid the grand rhetoric. It is true that Rome was not built in a day. But there is severe disagreement on how the days are being governed, parceled out, and experienced. After five years of oil production at increasing levels, and oil prices being where they are, Guyanese should be living better, in their own right, and not through any comparisons. And this is even with the current PSA terms and returns.

Perhaps this is a good terminal point. The PPP Government, President Ali and his supporters delight in a close relationship with the Middle East. I think that that is healthy (in parts). The Saudis experience with foreign oil firms and crippling arrangements for their treasure stands as a lesson for any Guyanese government. What the Saudis did to level the scales is an even better lesson. Considering the mentioning of Guyana relative to Qatar, I suggest some time is spared by government and president to examine its Exploration and Production Sharing Agreement. Thereafter, only political will and leadership wisdom will carry the day, make for the kind of Guyana that can, indeed, be a new Qatar.