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 Pick-pocket deal

Jan 27, 2020 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Imagine a situation in which you have a property but you are not familiar with its market value. So you hire real estate broker to sell the property for you.
He comes one day and tells you that he has gotten a good offer of $10M for the property. He advises you to take the deal since it is the best that you will get. You do so.
A few weeks later, you find out that the market value is $100M and that there are many persons who may have been willing to pay that sum. How are you going to feel that you have accepted $10M for a $100M property?
You would feel that your pockets have been picked. You would feel robbed. You would feel betrayed by your real estate broker. You would move to annul the deal.
The kingdom was sold for a horse. Guyanas oil wealth was sold short. Guyana got ripped-off. It is the worst deal in the history of oil deals. It is unacceptable, totally unacceptable.  It amounts to highway robbery.
Yet those who oversaw this pick-pocket arrangement have the temerity to come to the people and ask them to return them to office. People are free to do as they please but, as far as I am concerned, those who signed the oil agreements can never obtain my vote until they make things right and have that deal amended retroactively.
Right now, the talk is about renegotiation. But there will be no renegotiation once the Americans are involved. Both the PNCR and the PPPC are afraid of the Americans. They tremble in their boots when the American speak. Moreover, as far as the Americans are concerned, the deal is done and sealed. There is nothing to renegotiate.
Kaieteur News and Glenn Lall have provided an incomparable service to the nation through their exposure of the highway-robbery of the nations oil assets. Guyana has been sold for a horse in its negotiations with the oil companies.
Had it not been for Kaieteur News and Glenn Lall, the Guyanese people would be no wiser. It was Kaieteur News which was in the forefront of exposing the terrible agreement which was signed between the government and the oil companies. It was Kaieteur News which pressed for more than a year for the contract with Exxon Mobil to be made public.
It was Kaieteur News which led the way in explaining how the country was ripped-off by the oil companies. It was the bravery of Glenn Lall which saw this newspaper to sustain its reporting on this pick-pocket deal. A weaker man would not have been able to do this.
The former petroleum advisor to the President, Jan Mangal has called for a renegotiation of the contract before permission is given for work to commence on the Payara field. But what about the more than 6 billion barrels of oil which are believed to be contained in the Stabroek Block. It is unacceptable for Guyanese to simply not subject those reserves to renegotiation. Even a few percentage points higher in royalties and an imposition of a tax on profits will ensure a fairer deal.
A renegotiation before work commences on Payara is not enough. There is a need to strike a better deal for Liza 1 and Liza 2 because these two fields alone can make everyone in Guyana rich.
As things stand now, Guyanese have been robbed blind and legally so. And to add insult to injury, the country was deceived about the signing bonus.
And still politicians have the temerity to go by the road side and at rallies and to ask the people to vote so that they can return them to office. Not before a full-fledged Commission of Inquiry into the signing of this oil deal which will allow for the full facts to be known as to who was behind this sordid arrangement.
If this deal was signed behind the back of Cabinet and the President, then it is not legal. The contract should be annulled and a new agreement negotiated.

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