All of us have lost as a result of this latest foul-up

Nov 09, 2021 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News – Everybody, I know, would be glad to have been in the same position as those severed sugar workers who will receive a one-off grant of G$250,000 from the government. But all the hopefuls know that the government does not have the means to pay every person G$250,000.
Well not quite! Let us consider the recent scandal of the US$9B in post-2017 oil expenses which for some inexplicable reason were not audited by the PPP/C administration.
If through that audit, Guyana was able to claw back just 10 percent of that US$9B, it would amount to US$900M. This works out to an average of US$1,200 for every man, woman and child. Converted at US$1=G$210, this works out to G$250,000 per citizen. Now if you have a household comprising of a husband, a wife and two children, the total combined income to this household would be one million Guyana dollars.
So, it would mean that the average household (of four persons) would receive four times what the severed sugar workers received. Had the country been able to claw back a mere 10 percent from the post-2017 audit, every Guyanese could have received G$250,000.
Instead of receiving G$250,000, every man, woman and child now has to pay that sum to repay Exxon for the expenses which it submitted and which the government failed to audit.
Now, some persons, like Glenn Lall, the publisher of this newspaper, believe that 10 percent is too conservative. Glenn, in particular, believes that we should be looking at a higher percentage than 10 percent since he is of the belief that we should be looking for expenses, which are not recoverable costs; we should be looking for inflated expenses; and we should be scrutinising the expenses for transfer pricing.
But for the sake of argument, let us stick to the conservative figure of 10 percent. It is unconscionable for any government to claim that it was unable to undertake the audit, especially considering that we are dealing with billions of dollars.
There can be no excuse for what happened. One senior counsel has said this could amount to dereliction of duty.
In other parts of the world, governments would have had to resign over such a failure. But in Guyana, we are so divided that this will become yet another issue on which some will be faulting the government and others defending them, almost in equal proportion.
But every Guyanese has potentially lost money as result of this failure. And this is why all Guyanese should raise their voices and demand that whoever is responsible for this failure should be accountable and never again be allowed to sit in public office.
The cheerleaders of the government will try to blame the APNU+AFC for, in the first place signing an agreement, which limits audits to two years. They will also blame the Coalition for not commencing the audit.
The two-year time limit has been subject to criticism. But two years is not an unreasonable time for a country to audit its oil exploration and production expenses. This is quite a reasonable period and any government, which cannot audit the books of the oil companies in two years should not be in the oil and gas business.
The PPP/C has been in office for 15 months. It knew what it inherited. Its senior officials acknowledged that audits had to be done. They never said that this was a mission impossible. In fact, one of them promised that every cent would have been audited.
Instead, now we are being fed a pack of excuses about lack of local capability. Advertisements were also placed inviting expressions of interest for the audits. If these were found not to be suitable because of the absence of suitable local partners, then the problem is not with the foreign firm but with the local content requirement and the person or persons who had a brainwave to impose this requirement should accept the error and do the decent thing.
Guyanese cannot continue to be governed in such a manner. This has been a major foul-up. And coming on the backs of the failure to finalise the country’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and only now having consultations on the Low Carbon Development Strategy, raises serious questions about the management of the country’s oil and gas sector and the environment.
It is time for Guyanese people to say enough is enough and demand that someone be held responsible for this maddening state of affairs. This person should be asked to do the decent thing – tender a resignation.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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