Guyana's gov't passes new Natural Resources Fund act (Jan. 13, 2022)

Guyana’s parliament approved local content rules for oil producers and a sovereign wealth fund to oversee the country's oil earnings, on Dec. 30, 2021. The bills are part of updates to the country's regulatory framework for oil exploration and production. The local content bill requires that energy projects use local businesses for certain jobs, including environmental studies and metal fabrication. Changes to the Act Governing the Natural Resources Fund (NRF) in Guyana, will permit the government to use funding from the country's oil payments for the new financial year and its associated budget. (Reuters, Jamaica Observer)

The Natural Resources Fund assigns oversight of oil revenue to parliament instead of the finance ministry. Proceeds could be used for development and “essential projects that are directly related to ameliorating the effect of a major natural disaster,” according to the bill.

The governing PPP/C used its one-seat majority to pass the bill, despite opposition questions about its legality in a raucous session, reports Kaieteur News. Guyana’s President Mohamed Irfaan Ali has since signed the National Resources Fund into law. (News Americas)

But critics say the government passed the NRF Act without consultation with the parliamentary opposition or other civil society stakeholders. Kaieteur News posits that a principal concern are "loopholes that could give way to massive corruption, borrowing frenzies, as well as spending sprees."

Local democratic watchdog Article 13 has warned that the ‘undue haste’ opens the door for misuse of the oil funds. (Kaieteur News)

Climate Justice and Energy

• Jamaica's government is a 51% shareholder of Noranda, the applicant for a mining lease and environmental permit for bauxite mining in the contested area of Cockpit Country. That the regulator is also the Jamaican government ·is an irreconcilable conflict of interest," argues environmental activist and Founder of the Jamaica Environment Trust (JET) Diana McCaulay. (Petchary's Blog, see last week's Just Caribbean Updates on the Cockpit Country project.)
  
  
• The Cuban approach to climate adaptation and mitigation offers an alternative to the globally dominant paradigms based on the private sector or public-private partnerships, according to Jacobin. Cuba's Tarea Vida policy has increasing relevance to tourism-dependent Caribbean small island developing states, and others in the Global South.

Food Security

• Underpinning much of Haiti's troubles is environmental injustice and food insecurity, with 4.4 million people (of a population of nearly 11 million) at risk of hunger, reports the Guardian. Haiti's grassroots Papaye Peasant Movement (MPP) works to tackle deforestation and the climate crisis in Haiti’s poorest regions by working with subsistence farmers.

Decolonization

• A history professorship named after Cecil Rhodes has been axed by a Kings University London following a row over its imperial heritage and links to racism and slavery. The current post holder, Guyanese Richard Drayton was a key voice in lobbying for the move, reports the Daily Mail.
  
  
• Coolitude, a neologism advanced by Mauritian cultural theorist Khaleel Torabully, has grown into an intellectual framework over three decades that underpins a number of studies on the global Indian indenture experience. It has paved the way for an increasing body of literature that captures the experience of Indian labourers who were taken across the kala pani from ancestral India in the 1800s to diasporic colonial plantations, writes Baytoram Ramharack in Stabroek News.
  

Public Security

• Two Haitian journalists were killed by gang members while reporting in a conflictive area south of Port-au-Prince, last Thursday. A third journalist who was part of the group survived. Laboule 12, where the journalists were killed, has for months been the site of violent gang clashes and is the only way by road to reach the southern region of the country, which has been cut off since June by gang violence at the southern entrance of Port-au-Prince, reports the Miami Herald.

Culture

• The Tate Britain’s show “Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art, 1950s — Now” charts 70 years of Caribbean-British art through the works of over 40 artists with either Caribbean heritage or other connections to those islands. It tackles the themes of identity and family, colonialism and racism, and celebrates the richness of Caribbean culture, reports the New York Times.
  
  
• The Caribbean is mourning the passing of legendary actor, director, humanitarian and ambassador Sir Sidney Poitier, who passed away at the age of 94. Poitier was a native of Cat Island in The Bahamas. (The Caribbean Journal)
  
  
• Ten of the top Caribbean reads released in 2021, according to the Jamaica Gleaner, including How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps her House by Cherie Jones and Pleasantview by Celeste Mohammed.
  

Opportunities

• Call for papers for Shifting the Geography of Reason XX: “Philosophy, Literature, and Liberation,” organized by the Caribbean Philosophical Association. (Repeating Islands)

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