A criminal act perpetuated against the people

Feb 24, 2020 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
It seems that what was not listed in the PSA with Exxon as calculable “give away” is now headed to the annals of archeological treasure trove as artifacts to be unearthed sometime after all our oil resources have been extracted. The intent here is to bury exaggerated cost which will further increase Exxon’s profit at our expense and the missed opportunities by local businesses to a time when it is no longer relevant, from the prying eyes of the public. There could be no other reason for confidentiality clause appearing in our Local Content Policy.
Dr. Bynoe finds himself in an excruciating quandary to explain, so he gloats about the drafters having to honour the contractual obligations of Clauses 18 and 19 of our contracts with oil companies. Sadly! for Bynoe. Clauses 18 and 19 when perused, made no mention about confidentiality clauses. Added to this, three oil experts have opined that confidentiality provisions are not “generally accepted custom” in local content. The big question! What have we paid Dr. Warner $23 million for? A permanent unadulterated shafting, I suppose!
Anthony Paul, the Trinidadian hired earlier to draft our Local Content Policy, was keen to point out that in his second draft, he had written that government should articulate the position, “by which stakeholders can be held accountable for delivering on their roles.” Confidentiality provisions are not conducive to the above. The Head of the Energy Department should explain why Paul was not given the job to finish the final draft
I will not concur with Chris Ram’s opinion that Bynoe is too incompetent to handle the Department of Energy. Since it is now known that Exxon wrote our negotiating position to the Cabinet for our PSA. I am more inclined to believe that Bynoe was pressured into collusion with Exxon: to approve the awarding of a contract valued at some $23 million to produce the final version of our Local Content Policy by a Dr. Warner, a person with known connection to Exxon. The big picture here is that, about $23 million of precious state funds was squandered to produce a document (Local Content Policy) that is designed to hide high procurement costs and opportunities for the participation of our local businesses in the supplying of goods and services to the riggers offshore. The result is the opposite of the intent of “ Local Content Policy”, so Dr. Bynoe is left in the hot seat, grasping at straws to defend what should be considered a criminal act being perpetuated against the people of Guyana.
Rudolph Singh

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