The Canadian Consultant

Aug 17, 2020 Editorial

Of all the consultants in the world, Guyana’s new government selects this one. We have serious concerns with this particular Canadian consultant hiring; it should be so with all Guyanese. If we say we are for what is best for Guyana, then that is the only way we can be: concerned and critical, and so we must call it.
To be fair to the Government of Guyana and the newly recruited Canadian consultant, we focus first on the helpful, which does not mean much. Ms. Alison Redford, QC, has been around some heavy hitters, cropped up in many places, and worked at high elevations. Ms. Redford was an ex-premier at the provincial level, which conveys that she is astute at working crowd and contemporaries to get where she sets her sights. She was in Afghanistan, served in other jurisdictions, and currently is engaged in Pakistan as an advisor for the World Bank (“Consultant hired had resigned on corruption scandal, has little experience in field development evaluation,” KN August 16). One thing must be said for Ms. Redford: she gets around. Now, what follows is not so favourable for Guyana, in what we could possibly get versus what Guyanese expect.
Immediately, something must be said in the most unambiguous terms: we have had so much corruption in Guyana and are surrounded by so many rank corrupters, that we should not deal with anyone who has any whiff of corruption about them. Ms. Redford does have that about her, in “a slew of scandals,” as KN stated in the article referenced before. This started in 2013 when she attended Nelson Mandela’s funeral, issues about expenses for the chartering of a private jet developed, and repayment had to be compelled through much pressure.
There were other instances of misjudgment and failure by ex-premier Redford.
The litany ranged from “questionable spending” to “abusing her power” to a “culture of entitlement.” Since this is the expert consultant that Guyana has hired with fanfare and, truth be told, considerable folly, then she has come to the right place, where she should be right at home, given that we have our own longstanding political culture of such behaviours at every level.
Now if that were all, we may have surrendered to the temptation that Ms. Redford, QC, ex-premier, regulator, and current World Bank Advisor be given a pass. But we cannot, which we incorporated into the caption referred to earlier. That is, Ms. Redford is an expert on a lot of things and in many areas, but she is not an expert on the review of field development plans.
Payara is about the critical examination and review of a field development plan, in all of its intricate and sophisticated “geological, geophysical, and reservoir engineering” requirements. The knowledge and experience are just not there with Ms. Redford. This is to the extreme disadvantage of Guyana.
This is a mistake of severe proportions by government. We have neither time nor resources to experiment in trial and error, in the hope of getting lucky, with Canadian consultant Alison Redford.
This hiring by the Ali Administration does not inspire confidence. It could have done better, and it must do so now. First, disengage from Ms. Redford. Second, we must pay all review costs – Guyana must own this. And third, the government must search widely to get an untainted person to stand as our guide and steward in the Payara review. We recommend a highly technical and a highly seasoned performer in the field, who is truly expert in well paths, well design, and well drilling; and also “reservoir depletion, production rates…equipment (also FPSO) purchase or lease.”
To be brutally frank, Ms. Redford appears to have no such knowledge, no such skills. Her team may, but where does that leave her in interpreting and recommending to Guyana’s government? Where does that leave us, as we grapple with dealing authoritatively with ExxonMobil, which is the savviest of global corporate presences? What prospects does that leave us with, that we could finally get the best from our oil wealth? The answer to the last two questions is the same: nowhere and nothing. Start over, starting now.

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