The shaving cream hits the fan

Mar 03, 2018 Peeping Tom

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The ExxonMobil contract has had its first causality. The Minister of Natural Resources has become the victim of the firestorm which has erupted over the terms of that agreement.
The establishment of an energy department, incidentally dealing only with petroleum, under the Ministry of the Presidency, effectively emasculates Raphael Trotman, the Minister of Natural Resources and Leader of the Alliance for Change. The decision makes Trotman’s position as a Minister of Natural Resources untenable.
The decision to place the new department under the Ministry of the Presidency is a slap in the face of the AFC, which holds the ministerial responsibility for natural resources. It denudes the Ministry of Natural Resources of potentially its most profitable sector. Oil and gas is potentially the most lucrative natural resource sector in Guyana, and to have this placed under the Ministry of the Presidency is a gross insult to the Alliance for Change and its leader.
It is not the first time that a major chunk of Trotman’s portfolio has been forked out to the Ministry of the Presidency. Trotman laid the groundwork for Guyana’s signing of the Paris Agreement. He led Guyana’s delegation to the meeting which resulted in the Paris Agreement on climate change.
The agreement had implications for financing of green development. The Ministry of Natural Resources, with responsibility for the environment, was expected to be a major beneficiary of the inflows of finance which will be attracted to the environmental sector as a result of that agreement.
And it was Trotman who laid the groundwork for Guyana’s participation in that process, only to find when he came back that the environmental portfolio was stripped from his Ministry and a new department, called the Department of the Environment, was created under the oversight of the Ministry of the Presidency.
This decision was controversial, because the Ministry of Natural Resources is the best ministry to ensure a balance between the environment and the extractive sectors. Why take away that responsibility and place it under the already overtaxed Ministry of the Presidency?
There is a recurring pattern of stripping the AFC-headed ministries of responsibilities. The Ministry of Natural Resources was degutted of the environment portfolio; the Ministry of Public Security was denuded of citizenship; the Prime Minister has been brought under the umbrella of the Ministry of the Presidency, which has on its own created a parallel unit to the Department of Public Information; telecommunications is no longer under the Ministry of Business and the Ministry of Agriculture no longer has responsibility for the sugar industry.
Trotman has been given the face-saving role of overseeing the establishment of the new energy department and its transition to the Ministry of the Presidency. Political face-saving has become a trademark of the Granger administration. When an equally controversial contract was signed in the health ministry, the AFC led attempts at saving-face for the then Minister and the government.
Of course, the Ministry of the Presidency is denying that Trotman has been stripped of responsibility for petroleum. It quoted Trotman as saying that since last year he had proposed to President Granger that a Department of Energy be established under the Ministry of the Presidency.
But why would Trotman have done this voluntarily when it was only last year that it was announced that the Ministry of Natural Resources had established a new petroleum department and had advertised and filled certain critical vacancies?
A petroleum engineer, a petroleum geologist, a legal officer, an oil expert from Trinidad and Tobago and an oil and gas professional from Liberia, had been hired. It was also announced that the petroleum department would be further strengthened. So how come now we are learning that despite going to all this trouble, there was a proposal to create a department of energy within the Ministry of the Presidency. The Ministry of Presidency’s statement is unconvincing.
The Valentine Day Agreement, signed between the AFC and APNU, is now a useless piece of paper. The AFC has to now consider its role within the government. How can the AFC claim to have a meaningful role in Cabinet when it could not prevent the removal of the oil portfolio?
Trotman is intelligent enough to know that his position has become untenable. He should do the honourable thing and step aside.
The ExxonMobil contract is likely to lead to further implosions within the government when the full facts of what took place are better known. In the meantime, the question to be answered is who or what next will be the next victim of the ExxonMobil fallout.

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