Assuming that the optimists are correct, our country could see some $140 billion stream into the economy from oil and gas revenues in the next 20-odd years. When 3.5 times your current GDP comes knocking, you’d better listen, and listen close.
It’s no exaggeration to say that the fate of our nation, its people and its economic wellbeing could rest on whether this precious resource is used for good or for ill. Already, our economy is skewed toward sectors that cannot create the jobs we need to sustain our competitiveness, which at the moment is sorely lacking, in no short measure due to endemic corruption, security or any sort of policy framework.
From our waters to our lands to our mountains, the nation’s history is tainted with examples of how we have exploited our resources for the benefit of vested interests over public good. Without the proper mechanisms and safeguards to ensure that the money from any oil or gas wealth comes back as working capital and not as ‘miscellaneous expenses’, we will probably be better off without it.
Unless that money goes towards diversifying the economy so it produces, not just GDP, but jobs at both the top and bottom of the salary scales and across sectors, then we should not be optimistic about the panacea touted by our political patrons. As things stand we have only one exportable asset: our people and their entrepreneurial drive.
The gap that exists today between those that consume and drive GDP, and those that do not, will not be bridged by our current political and administrative setup. We should not think for a moment that those who have plundered the nation and enervated the prospects of our people will change tack now that our seas may offer fresh bounty.
If we play this right the nation could be offered an opportunity to finally stem the all too common beeline from the graduation party to the airport. If we get it wrong we can kiss goodbye to our greatest selling point: Our talented youth.
So before we embark upon this journey to explore our seas for what could be our last scarce resource, we must be certain that it will be used to give those that never had the chance their opportunity to succeed.
A Sovereign Wealth Fund in a country that is not sovereign, cannot pass a budget and funds itself with money it doesn’t have, is not something we should look forward to at this point.
Money alone will not solve structural problems.
