Payara: The Latest In A Long Line Of Leadership Failures

Oct 02, 2020 Editorial

---

Kaieteur News – We did say it before in frequent editorials and Front-Page presentations, what was confirmed by Mr. Carroll Muffett, President and CEO of the Center for International Environmental Law: “Guyana remains the last positive growth story that Exxon has to sell to investors” (KN, September 7). This is what we said.
ExxonMobil had nowhere to go. He said that Guyana represents Exxon’s oil swan song. Guyana is Exxon’s last oil hurrah. We have been proven right each time because we have said the same forever. Whatever production prospects the fading corporate giant has elsewhere, they fade to a distant second before the proven reserves and the vast potentials still to be found here. ExxonMobil was out on its feet and Guyana formed the sturdy ropes that hold this company upright and gave it plenty to declare in returns to its worried investors. But we gave it a lifeline, through the rushed, questionable, suspect, Payara Field Development review.
Exxon’s unthinking leaders were living on the past performance of its glory days, but today Country Manager, Mr. Alistair Routledge, gets to celebrate and report to Houston: no problems, mission accomplished, Guyana Payara license is in hand: signed and sealed, the celebrations can begin.
It celebrates the perpetuation of the lopsided contract that virtually gives it free money, which the company in its greedy and self-serving state wanted to stay that way, come hell or high water.
It did threaten to throttle Guyana for daring to ask for what is fair, but now it rests easy and counts its profits, the free money coming from Guyana, compliments of feeble and indebted PPP/C leaders.
Now it can exhale and relax, the PPP/C delivered on its American debts. Now Guyanese have more promises on which to live for, to depend on cunning political leaders to deliver. Have they ever done so on the big things, the things that matter? How dumb can we be to continue to believe?
It stands to any reasonableness test that ExxonMobil, using the powerful reach of its influence, encouraged and insisted of Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, that he says not a word about, or went anywhere near to, its embittering contract fallouts with Guyana.
The Payara result confirms all related truths, regardless of the PPP/C pretenses. Payara speaks for itself of the pathetic nature of political leadership in this country.
Though the writing was on the wall and game up for ExxonMobil, President Ali, Vice President Jagdeo, and the relevant ministerial team held more aces than ever before. They squandered them by doing nothing with those aces. For the Payara approval indicated a wretched timidness in pressing ExxonMobil to commit to more, give more, and actually deliver more, starting right now, instead of simply the same losing business as usual. A close study of their actions confirms that when Guyanese leaders should have been cannonballs in dealing with ExxonMobil, they transformed into butterballs and spitballs. Today, in the aftermath of Payara, it is all jiggery-pokery placed before a divided Guyanese public, of which a part swoons, while the other is severely distressed.
The time had never been riper for Guyanese leaders to insist: Give more or get out. Put up more of what we seek or ship out. Except that the PPP/C did not, after all its loud noises about where the coalition failed. Somebody had to stand up against these guys, draw the line, and hold firm. Again, the PPP/C did not. It failed Guyanese on oil again, with the same miserly results.
Time and again, we have encouraged this two-month-old government to drive a hard bargain, but to stick to what is reasonable, what is fair. We have urged no taking of a page out of the book of Exxon: do not get greedy. Do not let its wounded position and its limited options ‘full our eye’ as we say in Guyana. We may be poor and down, but we have pride, which will help carry the day. We also know something about class, and on this let us teach the cheaters and tricksters and bluffers at ExxonMobil, who want to rob us blind.
There is a better way that is not that costly, and one which leaves the bottom line of income statements and balance sheet heavily in black, with all parties getting their fair share.
We would have been satisfied with anything that the territory could have borne, which we say is about expenses sharing, that two percent sharing agreement. That way ExxonMobil still makes good money, more that it makes anywhere else, while Guyana gets something that lifts all citizens up and puts them on the road to certain prosperity for generations to come.
There are a host of expectations surrounding whatever comes from our oil bonanza, and no citizen wants to be left out in the heat with an empty saucepan in hand.
Payara was a golden opportunity for PPP/C leaders, who will not get a convergence of circumstances like this again. They did not strike on Payara, they sold out.
Now the moment has passed with the same cheapness to share. PPP/C leaders spar with words that fool few. Exxon had nowhere to go, but they let the company off the hook through the usual leadership weaknesses and failures. For sure, we will get some trickles coming our way eventually, but those would be pennies instead of the dollars that are rightly ours.

---

---