Govt ruined Guyana’s int’l reputation with oil contract - Jagdeo … even as MPs walk out for Jagdeo’s entire speech

Govt ruined Guyana’s int’l reputation with oil contract – Jagdeo … even as MPs walk out for Jagdeo’s entire speech

Dec 08, 2018 News

The government’s handling of negotiations with Exxon Mobil constitutes a situation that has ruined Guyana’s international reputation, said Leader of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo, yesterday.
He was making his presentation on the 2019 budget, at Parliament.
Jagdeo said that the people of Guyana have been badly served by the government through negotiations that display incompetence, which he believes damages Guyana’s prospects for economic growth.
He noted that though they continuously referred to the looming prospect of first oil, none of the government speakers addressed the oil contract with ExxonMobil in their budget speeches.

Leader of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo

The former president stated that Exxon is a multinational corporation that has a revenue base of about $400B, while Guyana is a small country with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of just over $3B. This, he believes, should have urged the government of Guyana to pursue the best legal, financial and technical advice, because “[Exxon] has the best lawyers and technical people.”
He said that they didn’t deliver on that expectation, thereby, putting the people of Guyana at risk. He said that in their reluctance to mention the lopsided contract, the government continues to recite the successes of ExxonMobil worldwide.
But they are unwilling to come clean to the Guyanese people about how they are going to benefit from the proceeds of oil.
Jagdeo said that the address of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carl Greenidge, indicates that he is frustrated with the independent media for its handling of news relating to the oil contract and the $18M signing bonus that the government received.
He said that the government went to great lengths to prevent the Guyanese public from finding out about the specific terms of the oil contract with ExxonMobil.
When it was eventually released, no one suffered any grave consequences he said. So, he explained, there was no reason to go about signing the contract with such an attitude.
Of interest is that Jagdeo never disclosed any contract his government signed. He never released the first oil contract his government signed with ExxonMobil and would not have done so, pointing to Trinidad which never did.
He exclaimed, “And this is the government that talks about protecting whistleblowers!”
“It’s not the media that’s peddling falseties, it’s the government.”
“In a democracy, where you have a free civil society and independent media, it’s normal for them not to carry the government line.”
He further said that the government, specifically the Minister of Finance, lied about the existence of the $18M signing bonus when he said that the government did not receive such a contract.
He read from the Natural Resources Fund Bill, which is awaiting its second reading in parliament, stating that if a person fails to make information public about how much money they received during such negotiations, they would be criminally liable to jail time or millions of dollars in fines.
He said that if this Act was in place then, quite a few [government officials] would have been in jail already.
The leader of the opposition also criticized the government’s touting of the prospect of paying US$5000 for every family. He said that, paying US$5000 to about 200,000 families would amount to $1B.
“We have only collected $300M from Exxon in the first few years but we’re giving out $1B?”
Government walks out
All government MPs walked out of the chamber as soon as the Speaker of the House announced that Jagdeo would be delivering his budget speech, yesterday.
Opposition MP, Irfaan Alli, shouted to the ministers of government as they led the procession out of the room, “They’re running. Why y’all running?”
Jagdeo spoke extensively, at the permission of the Speaker. The leader of the opposition spoke for about two hours.

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