Caribbean & Central America - August 2017 (ISSN 1741-4458)

That Guyana is on the cusp of a transformation as a result of major oil discoveries has been confirmed by another find announced by the Exxon Mobil Corporation at the end of July. Given the transformation that is about to happen it would seem to be appropriate that the government is moving ahead with plans to update the constitution of the notoriously divided country.

On 25 July Exxon Mobil announced that it had discovered a further 500m oil-equivalent barrels in the Payara reservoir, bringing the total estimated recoverable reserves in the Stabroek Block to between 2.25bn and 2.75bn oil-equivalent barrels. The new find is 12 miles northwest of the Liza Phase-1 portion of the 6.6m acre Stabroek Block, which is around 130 miles offshore.

A spokesman for Exxon Mobil said: “Payara, Liza, and the adjacent satellite discoveries at Snoek and Liza Deep will provide the foundation for world class oil developments and deliver substantial benefits to Guyana.” The government responded to the new discovery by reiterating that it is in a “race against time” to build capacity ahead of the production target date for Liza-1 of 2020.

A major concern for outside observers is how Guyana’s political system will cope with the transformation, and temptations, ahead. One of the curiosities of the Guyanese political system is that it has a habit of awarding the two main parties with long periods of alternating power. The People’s National Congress (PNC), which is largely supported by the Afro-Guyanese community, held power for 28 years until ousted by the East Indian-supported People’s Progressive Party (PPP) in 1992. The PPP then held on to power for 23 years until the PNC returned to power in 2015 as the major component in the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU)-Alliance for Change (AFC) coalition government. The concern for the PPP must be that the inflow of oil money from 2020 could reinforce the power of incumbency, and hence the longevity of the APNU-AFC ascendancy.

In addition to this, the PPP has a demographic problem. The full details of the latest (2012) census were released in early July, and while the report did not make particularly comforting reading for either main party, it was worse for the Indian-supported PPP. According to the figures, the population of East Indian descent declined from 326,277 in 2002 to 297,493 in 2012, that is from 43.4% of the total population to 39.8%. Over the same period, the Afro-Guyanese population declined from 227,062 (30.2% of the total) to 218,483 (29.2%). However, the mostly APNU-supporting mixed-race population grew from 125,727 (16.7%) to 148,532 (19.9%), which means that the combined share of the Afro-Guyanese and mixed-race population has increased from 46.9% to 49.1%. Then there are the Amerindians, who make up an interesting segment of the population with their ‘floating’ political allegiances. Between 2002 and 2013, the Amerindian population increased from 66,675 (9.1% of the total) to 78,492 (10.5%).

With this as the background, it is not surprising that the United Nations (UN) has warned the APNU-AFC government not to rush the process of constitutional reform following a visit to the country in February by a UN Constitutional Reform Team. So far the government appears to be heeding this advice, but the process is now moving forward, with the Constitutional Reform Consultative Commission Bill presented to the National Assembly at the end of July. The bill envisages the appointment of a 15-member commission to assist the Parliamentary Standing Committee for Constitutional Reform in its preparation of a final set of recommendations for submission to the National Assembly.