Speaker repeatedly limits full ventilation of Opposition’s Motions on crucial oil and gas issues

Mar 20, 2022 News

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By Davina Bagot

Kaieteur News – ‘Not urgent, ‘no evidence’, ‘I am not obligated to answer’ and ‘the matter is before the Court’.
These are all statements made by Speaker of the National Assembly, Manzoor Nadir, as he defended prohibiting full debates on Motions presented to the House by Opposition Members of Parliament (MPs) on matters of national importance.
In recent times, the Speaker’s integrity has been questioned as members of civil society and even the Opposition that represents close to 50 percent of the population, publicly gave their reviews on the matter.

It has been the Opposition’s argument that the Speaker of the National Assembly has not only gutted their Motions of national interest, but also sat by mute while ‘abuse’ to female MPs on the Opposition benches in particular goes unpunished or even unrecognised.
Just this past week, Guyanese learnt that a Motion submitted by Shadow Oil and Gas Minister, David Patterson, had been gutted to suit the government’s side.
The Motion was put forward by Patterson on February 16, 2022 and was responded to by Nadir on the 28th of that month, indicating that 13 of the 20 clauses had been removed as they were not based on facts.
His response to the MP was sent by the Clerk of the National Assembly, Mr. Sherlock Isaacs, who detailed that the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 7th, 8th, 11th, 12th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th ‘Whereas’ clauses were removed. The 6th and 7th clauses were also adjusted, while a suggestion was made for the 9th clause to be reworded.
The second clause, which was removed from the Motion, highlighted that worldwide offshore oil production operations show a high likelihood of an oil spill occurring offshore Guyana, and that such likelihood of a spill increases exponentially with the rapid increase in offshore production activities.
The 4th clause, which was also removed, reasoned that the emergency response and clean-up of the British Petroleum Macondo oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico have so far cost more than US$70 billion.
Even though these details have been widely reported on, and are therefore available for verification through quick research, these clauses were removed as the Speaker concluded, they must be based on facts.
In fact, the Speaker is reported to have also told Patterson that evidence must be provided to the House to substantiate the claims he made in his Motion, calling for the Government of Guyana to include full unlimited liability coverage for oil spills and other disasters related to petroleum production, as a condition for granting approval for ExxonMobil’s fourth project, the Yellowtail development, and all other future petroleum development.
When it comes to the amendments made, the Clerk of the National Assembly said that the Speaker removed the words ‘and economic bankruptcy’ from the 6th clause.
Before the adjustment was made, the clause stated, “And Whereas a major oil spill offshore Guyana would result in the environmental devastation of Guyana and its neighbouring countries, obliteration of the areas fishing industry, aquatic vegetation, and economic bankruptcy, including possible lawsuits from neighbouring countries.”
It must be noted that removal of these vital clauses from Patterson’s Motion means that they will not be debated in the National Assembly.

Moreover, members of civil society are calling for a full debate to be allowed on the Motion of full unlimited liability insurance. For instance, Economist, Ramon Gaskin has said that many issues in the Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) are not clear when it comes to who will be responsible for a possible cleanup of the environment after an oil spill, and more importantly, who would foot the bill.
“We still don’t have proper guarantees on who is going to fix it, who is going to clean up the environment and who is going to pay for it. That is not clear and that is why we need a full debate in the National Assembly and the Speaker should not interfere in it or the text of it, but rather allow for a full debate,” Gaskin said in an invited comment.
Gas-to-Shore Motion ‘watered-down’
Prior to the removal of clauses from the Insurance Motion, drastic changes were made to another Motion by Patterson, on the proposed Gas-to-Shore (now Gas-to-Energy) project.
The project is pegged at some US$1.2 billion but the Speaker was reluctant to allow an economic analysis of the project and allow it to be compared to other renewable options, such as solar.
In fact, the Speaker took some 75 days to approve Patterson’s Motion, the longest ever documented timeline this paper was told.
The Motion was finally approved, but not before being edited by the Speaker who removed a number of critical resolved clauses.
A clause that was omitted spoke to the need for discussions on gas leakages and exposures in the marine environment, which have shown to be highly toxic to fish, and living organisms and the ecology, which could devastate the fishing industry.
Another omitted clause states that “whereas determined in a March 2021 United States Bureau of Environmental Enforcement (US Offshore oil & gas regulator) comprehensive report, that the technology is not matured and reliable enough to ensure the integrity of deep-water pipelines and detection of subsurface leaks.”
That comprehensive studies be conducted by independent and internationally-recognised consultants to inform the decision on the project, was also outlined in the Motion.
Furthermore, the motion sought an investigation to understand the geological, environmental, and safety risks with mitigative actions, from pipeline leaks, ruptures and movements that may be caused by defective construction, aging, corrosion, seabed landforms, mudslides, hurricanes, tsunami, faults, fractures, and seismic activities such as earthquakes and volcanoes.
Additionally, the MP requested analyses of the available technology for real-time monitoring of the deep-water pipeline to ensure its integrity and reliable detection of subsurface leaks and the environmental, safety and health risks with mitigative actions associated with accommodating the gaps in technology, among others.
When the Motion came up for debate in the National Assembly the government side voted against the call for investigations and studies to be completed. Patterson’s Motion was therefore defeated.
Flaring before the Court

Back in February last year, Patterson’s Motion on natural gas flaring was submitted to the National Assembly. Parliament on its website said the document was received on February 22, 2021, while the Motion was scheduled for the Order Paper on March 12, 2021.
A case was indeed filed against the US oil major, ExxonMobil, for its rampant flaring in Guyana, but in late May of that year.
The Motion on flaring was never debated in the House as the matter is awaiting the Court’s ruling, in accordance with the Standing Orders that govern the proceedings, the Speaker said.
Patterson’s Motion was calling for the House to express its dissatisfaction that all reasonable measures have not been taken or are being taken to prevent the flaring of gas and for the oil company to be directed to abide by the terms and conditions issued in the relevant operating Permits.
Moreover, it called for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to take “all reasonable measures to ensure compliance, including EEPGL achieving zero flaring at the Liza 1 Project through reduction of oil production rates and suspension of same Liza 1 Permit if zero flaring is not met, until it is satisfied that all reasonable and lawful efforts are being made to ensure that there is no flaring of gas…”
The Motion also called for the Liza One and Liza Two permits to be amended by the EPA to become consistent with the updated conditions in the Payara Permit, relative to flaring.
COVID-19 not urgent
But it wasn’t only oil and gas issues that the Speaker targeted. Back in August last year, amid a frightening climb in COVID-19 deaths and cases, the Speaker used his authoritative seat to decide that the matter was not urgent and, therefore, shouldn’t take precedence over other matters in the House.
The Motion sought to discuss citizens who were not vaccinated against COVID-19, and were being denied access to government services.
Then Opposition Leader, Joseph Harmon, attempted to raise the issue as a matter of urgent public importance, but the Speaker decided otherwise.
Harmon reasoned that the gazetted measures were drastically impacting a considerable amount of Guyanese. Further to this, he reminded the administration that although it had announced that the vaccine was not mandatory, some individuals who refused to take the jab were being denied access to their place of work.

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