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Exxon’s US$9.5B spending…
Kaieteur News – “Guyanese must not be fooled by the verbalised comments of President Irfaan Ali and Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo that the Government of Guyana will conduct an audit into the last two years of Exxon’s spending. Any audit now will not save Guyana the burden we carry for owing US$9.5 billion to this company, when we failed to honour our side of the contractual agreement.”
This is the view of General Secretary of the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC), Lincoln Lewis.
General Secretary of the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC), Lincoln Lewis
Lewis in a letter to this newspaper highlighted his broadening concerns pertaining to the failure on the part of the administration to audit the expenses of ExxonMobil for the Liza projects.
The Trade Unionist pointed out that Guyana has never owed one company more than it has in its International Reserves at 2020 (US$680 million). However, the audit amount is in excess of even the 2021 National Budget.
“Never before has this nation owed one company more than it has in its International Reserves at 2020 (US$680 million), larger than its external (GY$$650 billion) and internal (GY$500 billion) debt ceilings, and bigger than its National Budget. This is the gravity of the situation we must grapple with and hold the government accountable, as was done with the former coalition government (A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance For Change), on these matters,” Lewis urged.
This year’s National Budget is GY$383.1 billion (US$1.84 billion).
According to Lewis, had the Government focused on the oil contracts rather than witch-hunting and “seeking to settle imaginary political scores”, the country could have avoided this travesty. He argued that the arrogance and incompetence of the administration is costing the nation and its people dearly.
“Few, if any, Guyanese would not come together to review the contracts. The noise the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) made when in Opposition about these contracts, and commitment given during the election campaign to review them, are proving to be just huffing and puffing to get into office,” the GTUC General Secretary highlighted.
He nonetheless argued that the leaders need to be held accountable, for their refusal to initiate actions to review these contracts, and for the state of our present affairs.
“It is because of their recklessness, future generations, many of whom are not yet born, will be saddled with this enormous debt. This US$9.5 billion could be equated to the Government of Guyana knowingly placing the People of Guyana into economic bondage to [a] foreign capital. It is tantamount to a form of economic indenture-ship to honour this financial obligation to Exxon,” Lewis explained.
“We could only imagine what $US9.5 billion could have done for the development of this country and the working class. It’s an imagination that will never be realized,” he added.
Referring to the current situation as a “sh%t creek” the leader of the Trade Union Congress said the Government and Opposition Leader must meet with all stakeholders in society, to ensure proper management of the business of the state, consistent with the Constitution of Guyana.
In addition to Vice President Jagdeo confirming that there were no audits undertaken for the US$9.5B projects, it was also disclosed that some US$960M—US$460 of which represent pre-contract costs—were also not audited, meaning that the total amount of money expended by Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL) amounts to some US$10.4B.
Under the Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) inked with EEPGL—ExxonMobil—and their partners, the Guyana Government has up to two years to audit and query the spending of the US oil major, failing which, the bills would have to be paid, as is.
After coming under pressure, Jagdeo announced earlier this week that the audits will be conducted.
Previously, he explained that the audits were never completed, as the country did not have strong enough local content to execute the job. “We have been very disappointed that we have not been able to select a group to do the audit of the post-2017 expenditure by Exxon. The reason is that we didn’t have strong local content. We had two groups, two local groups that came in, but they were not strong enough. We want to build the capacity in Guyana to do this audit. We think that our people have enormous skills, forensic skills and auditing capacity,” Jagdeo said.
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