GUYANA – The People’s National Congress Reform (PNC/R) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) have hammered former president and prime minister, Samuel Hinds,  who is currently Guyana’s ambassador to the United States,  for his recent comments that encourage Guyanese to rejoice over the pittance the country has received to date from the oil sector.

In a letter published in Kaieteur News, the ambassador said:“…perhaps we should rejoice that we received directly USD 4.4 billion, when without oil, we would have received nothing, zero”,  Hinds said.

“Let’s feel good about the USD 4.4 billion. If we have troubles absorbing the USD 4.4 billion according to some reports, what more troubles we would have had in absorbing USD 10 billion!  Sometimes there could be too much of a good thing,” the former president said.

Hind’s letter was addressed to the editor days after Kaieteur News reported that the country should have already received USD 10B from the Liza One and Liza Two projects. However, figures from the Bank of Guyana (BoG) revealed that only about USD 4.4B has been paid into the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) since the startup of production activities to the end of June 2024.

Chairman of the AFC, David Patterson in an invited comment said that it was unfortunate that a former president of Guyana could express such simplistic utterances.

In fact, he said:, “Hinds is now the country’s ambassador, so we have to be very worried about the level of presentation on behalf of the country, if he is satisfied with seeing his country short-changed.”

Patterson said Hinds, like his government, completely miss the point, which was never the country’s ability to spend the resources garnered from the petroleum industry, but rather, ensuring the country receives the maximum benefits for its resources.

Furthermore, the former minister of Public Infrastructure argued that the PPP government feels it is duty-bound to spend all the revenues generated from oil production.

He said that it is the only explanation for the comments made by Hinds, signaling that there is no consideration of saving for future generations. Patterson also suggested:  “If you can’t spend all the money, it should be invested and saved for a later generations.” (Kaieteur News)…[+]