Kaieteur News addresses contentions of SARA official

Jul 17, 2019 News

On July 7, last, Kaieteur News published that Special Assistant to the State Asset Recovery Agency (SARA), Eric Phillips is listed on a 2016 application for an offshore oil block that is located in ultra deep waters. The company that applied for the block is called African Business Roundtable Oil and Gas Exploration (ABR), of which Phillips is a co-founder.
Before publication, Kaieteur News made numerous efforts to contact the official for clarity on several issues related to the application. But Phillips refused to take the calls. After a few messages were sent to him via Facebook Messenger, Phillips directed this newspaper to speak with ABR on the matter. He subsequently indicated that he was no longer part of ABR. Asked to say when he left the company, there was no response. In the July 7 article that was published, Kaieteur News clearly explained same.
It is therefore utterly dishonest and revolting for the SARA official to then state in a letter to the media that this news outfit displayed “reckless disengagement of fact-checking or due diligence.” The only recklessness that is evident is Phillips’s failure to show what Kaieteur News failed to fact-check, when he has refused to face the crucial questions being posed by this entity on the issue.
Contrary to Phillips’s ill-informed contentions, this newspaper wishes to make clear that at no point was it stated that ABR received or was granted the block. In the July 7 article, it was categorically stated that the said block will be subject to a licensing round following the revision of Guyana’s archaic petroleum laws.
Furthermore, Kaieteur News has been, and continues to be, at the forefront of exposing all issues that could or have already affected the protection of Guyana’s oil and gas wealth. A non-partisan approach in this regard will continue to be vigourously pursued, irrespective of the baseless remarks from the likes of Phillips and others.

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