Gas-to-shore new price tag

Jan 31, 2022 Editorial

Kaieteur News- “US$900M Gas-to-Shore project to now cost in excess of US$1.3B -Govt. pledges US$520M for Power Plant -Budget 2022” (KN January 29). Any citizen of this country who didn’t see that increased price tag coming is either naïve or gullible or blindly believing in anything shoveled down their gullets by the PPP/C Government.

We at this paper have spoken about it and have written about it and have sounded the warning. Now it is here in the fabulous figure of an additional US$400 million added on rather casually by cunning leaders in the government that saw it fit to stay quiet, then sneak it into the 2022 budget.

The Vice President, this country’s self-proclaimed oil sage and superman, hardly said anything, even though this is a project that he has touted furiously, and against all pushback. He who has been so loud in singing the pluses of this must have projected, regardless of the cost, disappeared from the independent media radar and hid among the folds of protective friends in media back alleys and media slums. In the Vice President’s book, this is what passes for peerless oil management. Notwithstanding the evasions and the exit strategies of the Vice President on this dispute-tainted gas-to-shore project, there is this news of the steep 44 percent (US$400M) increase over its original cost now soon to be on the books of Guyana. It is a formidable and fearsome figure that should grip all Guyanese with alarm because we are now approaching closer to GY$3T; meaning CLOSE TO THREE TRILLION DOLLARS IN GUYANA MONEY. In case we forget or get complacent, this may not be the final figure for the project when it is finally done and delivered.
By any measure, any accounting contemplation, what was a troubling development from the inception, has now assumed epic proportions and is frightening. Unhearing and unheeding leaders in this government are rolling the dice in a high stakes gamble. A very high one and they are doing this on the backs of still largely indifferent citizens. In a volatile industry involving a fickle commodity, it is too much to put this burden on present and future generations of Guyanese.

Almost three trillion Guyana dollars, allocated for a single project. One that is shrouded in controversy and continuing mystery, is taking a massively reckless plunge into the unknown. When Guyanese pause and consider that this project is being piloted alongside a crooked partner that has cheated and ruthlessly taken advantage of a backward society from the get-go, this only intensifies the quantity and degree of misgivings. What could be the incentives for government leaders that they must have this project on stream, come hell or hailstorm, no matter the cost, regardless of the negatives? What could be the personal rewards for leaders pushing this project when even a proper and credible feasibility study done by an independent and trusted entity is still something not yet put before the Guyanese public?

What has gotten hold of them that they commit over half a billion US dollars on this gas-to-shore chip, in what could be interpreted as nothing less than true Las Vegas spirit, that of a high roller caught up in the throes of his addiction? What manner of madness, of roguishness, has overtaken them that they rush ahead in secrecy, and on stealthy feet, in what is supposed to be an open and consultative democracy?

One Opposition Member of Parliament, the one assigned responsibility for oil and gas coverage, last year called it ‘money for the boys.’ The problem is that this money for the boys (and girls) means poverty for the population, the entirety of it, other than for the inner circle of government crooks salivating at what is in the works. In this scenario, which has much credibility because of the corrupt history of previous PPP/C administrations, every party benefits handsomely, and incomparably so. Exxon and it partners benefit, and they are already boasting. Leaders and favoured insiders in this PPP/C Government benefit, like they have never done before. The local private sector, the powerful campaign financing section of it benefits and beyond their elections investments. The only ones not benefiting are Guyanese. But this gas-to-shore project just must be, regardless.

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Gas-to-shore new price tag

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