Dear Editor,
Every week we hear the same tired chorus about Guyana’s oil sector: the contract is bad, the companies are exploiting us, nothing is changing and we are “not seeing the benefits”. But anyone who has been paying attention knows this narrative simply does not hold up.
In just five short years, Guyana has undergone the most dramatic economic and social transformation in our history and the oil and gas sector has been at the centre of it.
Critics tend to conveniently ignore facts, so let us put them plainly: our economy has grown at a pace unmatched anywhere else in the world. Tens of thousands of Guyanese are working, both directly and indirectly, in oil and its spin-off industries. Over 6,200 Guyanese are employed by ExxonMobil and its contractors, and that number increases every year. Local businesses earned US$350 million in the first half of 2025 alone and nearly US$3 billion has been spent with Guyanese suppliers since 2015. Those aren’t theories, those are opportunities changing real lives.
Communities from Berbice to Bartica are seeing new infrastructure, new training programmes and new investments. Our young people are learning trades their parents never dreamed of. The Guyana Technical Training College is opening its doors to train our own oil and gas professionals right here at home. Entire small businesses are expanding in ways that were unimaginable before first oil.
And let us not forget the big picture; international partners like the United Kingdom are raising their financing capacity for Guyana because they trust our economic trajectory. That level of confidence did not exist before oil. Today, Guyana is not begging, we are being courted.
Yet some still insist on painting oil as a curse. A part of me understands the skepticism, this country has been disappointed before, but we cannot pretend that our progress is imaginary. Look at the roads, the bridges, the housing drive, the scholarship programmes, the training, the jobs. Look at how many Guyanese businesses now stand proudly shoulder-to-shoulder with global suppliers. Look at the opportunities our young people never had until now.
Is everything perfect? Of course not. But perfection is not the standard, progress is. And for the first time in our history, progress is visible with the naked eye.
It is time we start acknowledging the truth – oil has not taken from us, it has given us the strongest foundation for national development we have ever had. The only thing that can stop us now is the refusal to see what is right in front of us.
Sincerely,
Robert Taylor
