It was a programme whose time had come.

Until January, smuggling accounted for about 20 percent of fuel imports and approximately US$10 million in revenue loss each year, and it threatened the viability of the nation's fossil energy sector. Just as debilitating, unmarked fuel caused untold damage to vehicle engines.

The Guyana Energy Agency has reported a 15% curb in the illegal practice since it inaugurated the fuel marking system late last year. And agency head Joseph O'Lall is hoping that fuel's principal smugglers will accept that it's time for them to "get out of the business" now that they've "made their money."

Fuel isn't the only commodity being smuggled into Guyana. The National Milling Company complained just recently that the illegal importation of flour was severely affecting sales. And Banks DIH Limited, which has been making half billion dollar profits the last few years, warned that imported beer was threatening jobs.

It cannot escape presumption, however, that the smuggling of fuel and the consequential loss of US$10 million a year in revenue earnings might not have happened had CGX Energy Incorporated gotten its way. At a time when capital flows are spiraling downwards to depressed levels and domestic cost/price distortions are threatening to erode our international competitiveness, the production of petroleum is seen as a fundamental determinant of the economic performance of developing Guyana.

That is why oil exploration by CGX Energy Inc. held out promising prospects for the country's economic growth. Buoyed by studies that estimated the Corentyne Block and Berbice Canyon containing over a billion barrels of oil, and by contractual terms that CGX itself said were "conducive for exploration," the Canadian company began setting up its oilrig offshore in 1999.

It was the closest Guyana had come, more than three decades after gaining political independence, to being assured that it wasn't, after all, one of the world's oil resource-impoverished nations. Suriname's forced removal of the oilrig from the Corentyne Block on June 2, 2002 was therefore a major setback for the Guyanese economy. Hence, Government's move to the World Court and the United Nations! It was an option Guyana had at its disposal that it eventually used, after exhaustive bilateral efforts had failed to resolve the Guyana/Suriname maritime boundary dispute.

Governmental critics do not agree that resorting to world community intervention was necessary. The PNC/R, for instance, believes that far from the dispute warranting urgent international attention, Government is merely trying to detract attention from a PNC/R-led campaign to have Home Affairs Minister Ronald Gajraj relieved of his portfolio over the Bacchus/phantom squad affair.

To be sure, Government and Opposition are virtually always at odds on public policy issues - one where Government sets and implements policies and the Opposition sets out to diminish and ridicule the role of Government and the impact of those policies.

But in line with the PNC/R's motto to "put Guyana first" and the expectation of Government that it is government of and for all, Guyanese have a right to expect both Government and Opposition to see Guyana as the bigger picture it is - and unite in addressing the country's territorial disputes.

Both are aware that external flows of official and private finance are essential for Guyana's development and that these flows are critically dependent on an environment that is conducive to healthy and sustained economic growth.

As the Government of the day, the PPP/CIVIC administration has to be mindful that personnel placed in positions of trust and responsibility adhere strictly to do the principles of fairness, equity and justice, not discriminating against anyone, for any reason.