Barely 18 months since becoming technically independent, Guyana is well on its way to becoming a model example of neo-colonialism in South America. Amid much talk of neutralism and planned economy, the political régime has adopted policies of frank subservience to the United States and other imperialist nations, especially Great Britain and Canada. It has instituted anti-Communism as a semi-official ideology, and gone full speed ahead with plans to keep the government perpetually out of the hands of the People’s Progressive Party, the Marxist movement headed by Dr Cheddi Jagan. Guyana has unabashedly called on the United States, Britain and Canada not only to maintain but to expand their exploitation of the nation’s natural and human resources. While most neo-colonial régimes try to conceal the truth that their chief attraction is cheap labour, Guyana brazenly advertises the fact. The Economic Future of Guyana, a publication of the official Guyana Development Corporation, trumpets that the basic government wage is only four dollars a day, while in some sectors, such as commerce and the clothing industry, workers can be had for two dollars a day or less. ‘In pursuit of its policy to expand industrial exports, Guyana offers skilled and semi-skilled labour at low rates.’ Other concessions for would-be investors (who have responded at a gratifying rate, claims this self-styled ‘socialist’ government) include tax holidays, land give-aways, and no restriction on the repatriation of profits, capital or capital gains.

The adoption of these policies was the achievement of the government’s first Finance Minister, Peter D’Aguiar, himself one of the nation’s most important businessmen. The only way that Forbes Burnham, the Prime Minister, could put his coalition government together was to give D’Aguiar the key finance portfolio. D’Aguiar was influential in focusing the activities of the Guyana Credit Corporation almost entirely on welcome for foreign investors. Too much emphasis had been put on the housing sector, he told the National Assembly. D’Aguiar, who entered politics purely out of self-interest, since he prefers being an old-fashioned businessman, finally resigned his post in October. His successor is P. R. Reid, of the National People’s Congress, former Minister of Trade, who believes that ‘the time has come for capital and labour, the two great sections of our community, to co-operate at all levels’.

Who are the foreign investors in Guyana? Among the most important are the Continental Oil Company of Guyana (a wholly owned subsidiary of Continental Oil Co.) and the Tenneco Oil Co., who have invested more than $1·5 million in off-shore oil exploration on the Essequibo Coast, some 270 miles out of Georgetown. Less than half of the work-force in the off-shore explorations is Guyanese. The Guyana Development Corporation announces proudly in its Quarterly Bulletin for January-March 1967 that Continental is the ‘eighth largest oil company in the United States’, with a net profit of $126,250,000 in 1966. ‘Tenneco’, the bulletin adds, ‘is an oil and gas transmission company with interests in manufacturing, sales, real estate and mining. Headquarters are in Houston, Texas, and Tenneco Guyana Ltd is a subsidiary of Tenneco International. They own pipelines from Texas to New York and have world-wide interests including Argentina, Nigeria and Iran.’ Guyana is also welcoming a $3 million investment in a wheat flour mill from the Seaboard Allied Milling Corporation. This friendly firm is described as a ‘large United States flour milling company with flour mills in the United States of America, as well as in Sierra Leone, Ecuador, Peru and Chile’.