27 questions sent to the leaders for their answers

Jun 11, 2021 News

---

Kaieteur News – I, Glenn Lall, Guyanese citizen and publisher of Kaieteur News, invite you, as leaders of this society, to give in-person responses to a series of questions that I have thought of, and the answers to which would be of great interest to all Guyanese citizens.

The invitation is for my Kaieteur Radio programme this Friday, June 11 at 19:20 hrs.

If any of you cannot attend, the answers to the questions below can be presented in writing, which I commit to delivering untouched to the Guyanese public via Kaieteur Radio and Kaieteur News.

I am inviting President, Irfaan Ali; Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo; Opposition Leader, Joseph Harmon; and Khemraj Ramjattan, as all elected leaders of this land, and in keeping with the vital elements of the democratic process, I would appreciate the courtesy of your duty, through your timely and frank responses.

The questions are:
1. Why don’t we have a ring fencing provision in the Exxon contract to protect us?
2. Why do we have to give Exxon and its partners one month’s notice before we can go to check or audit their books when we have a 50/50 partnership?
3. Why are we paying ExxonMobil’s taxes for them, their contractors and subcontractors?
4. Why do we allow the oil players to dump produced water into our oceans?
5. Why are we allowing flaring during full oil production?
6. Why is it that Guyana does not have a local content policy in place six years after oil-discovery?
7. Why is it that we have one of the worst oil contracts on earth in the last 100 years that gives Guyana two percent royalty and yet transportation costs have to come out from that?
8. Why is ballast water being dumped into our oceans by the oil ships?
9. Why does Guyana not have full cover insurance to protect the citizens of our country, our country as a whole and other neighbouring countries when an oil disaster happens out there?
10. Why do we not have any say or control on these billion dollars FDP as a 50/50 partnership?
11. Why does Guyana have no say on the cost of the rentals of supply vessels?
12. Why do we not have control or say on the daily costs or expenses on the oil operations?
13. Why don’t we have anyone checking the barrels of oil that are coming up on a daily basis? And why are we depending on the figures ExxonMobil and its partners produce to us?
14. Is this how two countries, two companies, two people do 50/50 business, leaders?
15. Why is the nation not given full information about what is going on with the people’s wealth? Gold etc.
16. As for Decommissioning/Cleanup: why is it that funds are being taken out and the nation does not know how much is being taken out, where it is being kept, and who is benefitting?
17. Why does Guyana not have the capabilities to handle the toxic waste product that is being discharged from Liza 1? No one knows who, where and what they are doing with it.
18. What rescue plan is in place in case of an oil well blowout to safeguard the country and its citizens?
19. Why does Guyana not know the interest rate they are paying on the US$20B loan sitting out there for the Liza 1, 2 and Payara?
20. By law no oil company should get more than 60 oil Blocks. Why ExxonMobil was given 600? Mr. Leaders.
21. Every five (5) years all oil companies have to relinquish 20 percent of their oil blocks. Why did our leaders extend the time for them?
22. Why is it that our leaders, including VP Jagdeo, not asking much less demanding a renegotiation of this one-sided lopsided Exxon contract when it is clear in the PSA that both parties have to agree?
23. Who is selling our oil, at what price and what is the arrangement?
24. Is it the citizens who have to go to court to fight for our renegotiation, when the PSA has the provisions for a renegotiation, tell us Mr. Jagdeo.
25. Let me ask this question, is it that you guys are receiving some personal benefits from the oil companies that is preventing all of you from seeking to renegotiate this oil contract.
26. Imagine a citizen, Melinda Janki, had to go to court to get the 20-year EPA permit issued to ExxonMobil reversed to what the law requires. Why Jagdeo? Why Harmon? Why Ramjattan? Why did that woman have to spend her money, her expertise, her time to correct what you guys did when you broke the law to facilitate Exxon?
27. Is it the citizens who have to go to court again to correct the 600 oil blocks given to Exxon, when they are entitled to 60?

Those are only 27 questions for now my friends. See you guys on the Friday programme,
19:20 hrs. sharp. I promise to publish in full your written and/or recorded answers.
I don’t want any one of you to answer all 27, it’s too much to talk about in one programme, please pick any five or three so we can discuss them Friday on the Kaieteur Radio at 19:20 hrs.

---

---