Rastafari, technology, liberation and ExxonMobil in Guyana

Dec 18, 2017 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Since May 21, 2015 when President David Granger with Comrades Joe Harmon and Raphael Trotman took a helicopter ride to the ExxonMobil oil rig in the Atlantic Ocean (Stabroek Block) to be embraced, Rastafarians in Guyana have been monitoring the APNU+AFC government, winner of the election on May 16, 2015, on all aspects (or non-aspects) of oil and gas production and administration in Guyana by ExxonMobil.
Rastafarians have been in gold production for decades and know well about gold and diamond exploration, production and regulations. Rastafarians have been reading and watching the news about the oil fields in off-shore Guyana because we have mastered the gold fields in hinterland Guyana. For us, Rastafari is the destiny of Guyana.
It is from this view point that the Rastafari Community of all Guyana and their counterparts react to the newspaper headline ‘Greenidge jumps to ExxonMobil’s defence’ in Kaieteur News (December 5, 2017). The newspaper quoted Minister of Foreign Affairs Carl Greenidge, as saying in Berbice, “prolonged cuss out of oil company ExxonMobil is unwarranted”.
Greenidge also cautioned citizens to not “believe these jokers that would have you cuss out a company that has found oil and develops that oil”. Greenidge was referring to journalists as jokers.
Question: Is Minister of Foreign Affairs Carl Greenidge a stooge of ExxonMobil? Does he know the hidden agenda of the oil company? Rastafari Intellectual Army will not allow pain to be inflicted on the Rastafari in Guyana by ExxonMobil or the APNU+AFC government.
What are the aspects (or non-aspects) of oil and gas exploration, production and regulations that the RIA will be monitoring? First, let it be known to all Guyana that Rasta will be monitoring oil and gas from production to closure of all oil fields in Guyana. Every reservoir on-shore or off-shore, shallow or deep we will examine. We will share with counterparts in Africa.
We will begin with Liza oil field in Stabroek Block in off-shore Guyana that ExxonMobil is contracted to liberate oil from its reservoir. ExxonMobil has a floating production, storage, and off-loading vessel above the Lisa reservoir. Commercial production of oil for export is expected to start in 2020. The gas could be used for production, flared or sent onshore for generation of electricity – no decision has yet been taken on Guyana’s gas and this Rasta will monitor.
The Rastafari Intellectual Army expects the journalists of Guyana to release to the citizens of Guyana the Field Development Plan, FDP, of Liza oil reservoir. The oil belongs to Guyanese. Not only senior politicians must know of the Field Development Plan.
The FDP is one aspect of the Production Sharing Contract, PSC, between the people of Guyana and contractor ExxonMobil. This FDP by ExxonMobil will bring into being a new culture of Guyanese citizens because we, as owners of the reservoir, will be scrutinizing it.
Rastafari geologists, geochemists, geophysicists, geobiologists, geo-mathematicians, petroleum engineers, drilling and completion specialists, facilities specialists, operation and production specialists, environmental specialists, planners and cost estimators, quantity surveyors, auditors, land surveyors, economists and commercial experts, pastors, lawyers, medical practitioners and other workers will advance Guyana to a new technical culture.
Rastafari can supply all of these workers because Rasta specialists are in the Caribbean and all continents of the world.
Carl Greenidge blurts out that “It is our job to ensure that our Inland Revenue Department is competently manned so as to analyse their books and impose taxes they are supposed to pay. You can’t start up by beating up the company when in fact the company hasn’t been due to pay taxes and (has not) refused to pay taxes”.
He is addressing only one aspect of monitoring. Carl Greenidge’s vision must be taken beyond revenue and taxes.
In the 1980s, Carl Greenidge as Minister of Economic Affairs, destroyed native manufacturers and enriched native importers (foreign currency was available to importers) and foreign investors. But not this time!
Freddie Kissoon wrote recently, “Hoyte engineered perhaps the cruelest anti-people structural adjustment system a post-colonial government ever pursued named the Economic Recovery Programme. Hoyte had his own meaning of what people meant, for him it didn’t mean the masses”. President Desmond Hoyte’s Economic Affairs Minister was Carl Greenidge.
Carl Greenidge has a degree in economics (wealth) but he does not know that wealth comes from the application of science (technology). He bows down to importers and investment paying rents, royalties, taxes and providing jobs. He favors foreigners and jobs – the recipe of enslavement of Guyanese. As Minister of Foreign Affairs he has to show discernment of motives of actions.
ExxonMobil is not into Guyana’s essence of egalitarianism and liberty. ExxonMobil is the very essence of a USA capitalist brute – high profit, tax dodging and low wages. Greenidge was told by journalists (and hopefully his diplomats) that in Chad, Papa New Guinea, Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria, ExxonMobil refused to pay taxes and royalties and has a track record of acts of bribery and corruption as well as destruction of the environment.
Greenidge is now President David Granger’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Granger needs a foreign minister with the mental agility to deal with ExxonMobil’s hidden agenda and not revenue matters.
On December 8, 2017 the media disclosed that the Guyana Government took US$18million from ExxonMobil to finance ‘territorial integrity’ in the border dispute with Venezuela. Second, the media said that US$18million is a ‘signature bonus’ as per the Production Sharing Contract PSC.
Third, the media said that this money is in an escrow account at the Bank of Guyana. What are the techniques of bribery and corruption that tests a politician’s patriotism?
ExxonMobil will get back its money using ‘Cost Recovery’ arithmetic. What is ExxonMobil, or political USA, inner motive here? The Ministry of Foreign Affairs needs to be schooled on how Ethiopia defended its territory between the Battle of Adowa and its membership of the League of Nations. How to prevent war and how to prevent his President and core Ministers from being asphyxiated is Greenidge’s present responsibility.
On June 14, 1999 USA-born Mrs. Janet Jagan, as President of Guyana, gave USA ExxonMobil 600 blocks of Guyana’s oil land instead of 60 blocks. One section of the regulations on oil says that an investor can get no more than 60 blocks of land. Another section of the same regulations says “under special considerations” the Minister can give oil land in excess of 60 blocks. So, Mrs. Jagan gave ExxonMobil 600 blocks.
What was Mrs. Jagan’s motive for this action? Beyond US$18million, territorial integrity, signature bonus, 60 blocks, 600 blocks and ‘under special considerations’ is our border case with Venezuela. We could be at war within the next generation – no joke. Oil and wars have been companions for the last hundred years – check the history. Rastafari must unite.
Yours faithfully,
Ras Leon Saul (Publisher / Producer / Broadcaster) et al

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