ExxonMobil’s Stabroek block contract not being investigated - Phillips

ExxonMobil’s Stabroek block contract not being investigated – Phillips

Jun 08, 2019 News

Chartered Accountant, Chris Ram

By Kiana Wilburg

Even though Transparency International Guyana Inc. (TIGI) recently raised concerns about the deal ExxonMobil struck with the Granger administration, deeming it to be fraught with illegalities, the State Asset Recovery Agency (SARA) will not be investigating the ExxonMobil arrangement.
Kaieteur News confirmed this with SARA’s Special Assistant, Eric Phillips.
Phillips is currently the lead person on SARA’s probe into the suspicious award of the Kaieteur and Canje blocks by former President, Donald Ramotar to firms which have no experience in deep water exploration.
Phillips noted that SARA’s focus on probing oil blocks at this point in time is narrow. It is fixed on the Kaieteur and Canje blocks he said.

SARA Special Assistant, Eric Phillips

This newspaper then highlighted TIGI’s points, one of which states that the Exxon Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) allows the subsidiary of the American operator, Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL), to hold more blocks than the law allows.
But the SARA official said that these and other arguments were already laid out by critics such as Chartered Accountant, Chris Ram and Oil Consultant, Dr. Jan Mangal.
Phillips said, “I have heard these arguments before but it is not something we are looking into…” He also reminded that the law allows the Minister to grant permission for the company to hold onto the acreage in the case of special circumstances.
He stressed that this very point was already made by Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman.
Chartered Accountant and anticorruption advocate, Chris Ram, was one of the first legal minds here to point out the golden opportunity the government missed or ignored as it relates to the oil blocks being held by ExxonMobil.
Ram had explained that during the PPP’s time, ExxonMobil was given 600 blocks. This is ten times more than what the law stipulates. The nation’s rules and regulations also stipulate that at every request for a renewal, the company is expected to relinquish half of the oil blocks it started with.
But the PPP made an adjustment to the contract, thereby allowing the company to hold on to the 600 oil blocks.
In the new agreement that was signed in 2016, Ram said that Natural Resources Minister, Raphael Trotman, failed to address or redress the aforementioned problems.
Taking this into account, Ram had characterized Trotman as a liability to Guyana.
Ram had noted that unless the Minister can provide a satisfactory explanation for why he failed to correct the wrongs of the past, then he should be removed from office. The Chartered Accountant expressed the view that if Trotman can act in this manner, then there is no telling what else he would not do.
Ram was also asked if in his opinion, there are enough grounds for the Guyana-ExxonMobil PSA to be challenged in the court.
The Attorney-at-law had told Kaieteur News, “There are obviously things that are illegal in the contract. But listen, I really do believe that a system should not require or allow a government to engage in breaking the law and then saying to civil society ‘oh take it to court’ if you want to see a change .
“The law requires Government to be compliant…What I would like to know is where was the Attorney General, Basil Williams, in all of this?”

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Latest News