(Kaieteur News) – Guyana’s petroleum future will not be decided only by how much oil is produced, or how much money enters the Natural Resource Fund. It will also be decided in subtler moments: when licences are granted, renewed, relinquished, transferred, farmed into, sold, amended or hidden from public view. Trinidad and Tobago’s experience shows how even a country with more than a century of petroleum history can lose enormous value when regulators are weak, contracts are kept from public scrutiny, legal safeguards are not enforced, and citizens are not given the information needed to understand and defend their national interest.

Guyana has an advantage: several of its petroleum agreements are already public. But that is only the beginning. Calls to have licences/contracts for Gas-to-Energy projects to be made public illustrate that sustaining transparency is also important. Beyond that, the real test is whether public information becomes public understanding, public vigilance and public accountability before the next major petroleum value moves out of the people’s hands.

Guyana has one advantage Trinidad and Tobago did not use properly: many of its petroleum agreements are already in public view.