‘Look forward and grasp opportunities ahead’ – PM Nagamootoo urges Afro-Guyanese


– Emancipation celebrations held at National Park

DPI, Guyana, Thursday, August 2, 2018

Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo has told Afro-Guyanese as they reflect and observe their past, to also look towards the future and grasp the opportunities in the coming months.

The Prime Minister was yesterday joined by hundreds of Guyanese at the National Park to celebrate 180 years of Emancipation. “We are looking forward, we can do introspection but we must do a prospective look at what is going to happen in 18 months not 180 years,” the Prime Minister stated.

Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo was referring to the production of oil in Guyana in the year 2020. Only recently, ExxonMobil and its partners, Hess Guyana and CNOOC Nexen Petroleum, increased the estimate for the Stabroek Block to over 4Billion barrels. ExxonMobil has made eight discoveries in Guyana’s waters to date – Liza, Payara, Liza Deep, Snoek, Turbot, Ranger, Pacora and Longtail.

The Prime Minister said that the celebration of 180 years of the abolition of enslavement should not only mean freedom but there must be substance to the freedom achieved.

“We have to now give content to what it is to be free, is it free and be poor, it is free and be miserly, is it free and be beggarly or is it free and have pride, dignity, self-worth and wealth? So, I feel we have to move forward with optimism, with confidence,” he said.

He continued, “Guyana now is poised on moving its economy forward. While in the past it had Africans brought here as human cargo, we have to look at how to convert the human cargo into human capital to help to build the basis. The scientific, technological, educational, cultural basis on which we can move or our economy forward and we can make this country a paradise.”

The annual celebration was held by the African Cultural and Development Association (ACDA). The event saw Guyanese from across the country coming together in observance of Emancipation Day.

By: Isaiah Braithwaite

Images: Kennyann Bacchus

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