GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – The internationally renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs will not now participate in the Guyana Energy Conference that gets underway here later on Tuesday.
The conference spokesman, Alex Graham, told reporters that no reasons had been given for Sachs’ absence even though he had been billed as a keynote speaker at the four-day event.
“Jeffrey has decided to attend no longer. As far as we know, he had committed, and later on, in the discussion about his participation, he said he would no longer be able to attend, and that’s as far as I know,” he said.
“If you have certain minds and actors in the global space on energy and the environment, you certainly want them at the table, and if you don’t have some of those, then you are disappointed,” Graham said, declining to say whether he thought that the absence of the noted economist had anything to do with the local environmental lobby.
“I have no idea,” he said. He said.
The conference is being held under the theme “Harnessing Energy for Development” and aims to facilitate the exchange of ideas, propositions, and plans for fundamental advances in the energy sector.
Several Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders are due to attend the conference.
Meanwhile, the Guyana Press Association (GPA) has criticized the new rules outlined by the conference organizers regarding how the event is covered.
“The Guyana Press Association bemoans the attempt by the organizers of the Guyana Energy Conference to constrain the media’s free access to delegates and other participants of the event scheduled for February 14 to 17, 2023,” the GPA said in a statement on Monday night.
It said that with many of the delegates coming from free, open, and democratic societies where press freedom and media access are norms, this quite possibly is a novel experience for them as conference organizers are holding themselves out as the “conduit” for arranging interviews.
The GPA says it urges the organizers to conduct themselves by globally accepted rules of engagement with the media rather than seeking to impose, enforce or introduce barriers.
“These are only attempts at State-driven control of the media, and so foreign delegates should not be seen as a party to conduct that smacks of some press restriction.
“The media, rather than the organizers of the Guyana Energy Conference, are the true and authentic conduits between decision-makers and the working class,” the GPA said.
More than 1,200 people are expected to attend the energy conference.
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