US$2B for oil spill

Mar 21, 2022 Editorial

Kaieteur News – We have a number that is supposed to comfort us, leave us resting contentedly on our cushions. It is a big number, with a couple of billions involved, and anything involving the magical number of a billion means a lot to most Guyanese. For here are a people, largely poor and mostly new to the fast and fancy ways of the oil world, who are accustomed to dealing in pennies and poverty, now being overwhelmed by something called billions for oil spill insurance coverage.

It may be enough to ‘full the eye’ of many Guyanese, to use a local saying, but we at this newspaper must get this straight: US$2B does not full our eye. It is way short, is far from enough, in representing full insurance coverage for oil spill insurance in the event of a catastrophic oil spill at one of Exxon’s offshore wells. It is not enough. It is too paltry. It is not sufficient and by miles, it is too measly, and could lead to more impoverishment of this already struggling nation.
US$2 billion may sound like a lot of money, and it is. But not when a disastrous oil spill is in the mix of considerations and could occur.

We will have nothing to fall back on, nothing to cushion our fall from a high promise to the low indebtedness of the gutter, if not the cesspit. We have neighbours that are too close, and who are alarmed. They are not as near as we, and not as responsible as we for any potential oil spill, but they are worried, and strongly so.

We cannot afford to be complacent and stay quiet in this matter of full insurance coverage that offers us the fullest protections in a worst case scenarios. We don’t know of anyone who buys a brand-new Mercedes and takes out a pittance for insurance coverage. If he or she didn’t buy with cash, then the bank that loaned the money would demand and never settle for less than the fullest insurance coverage in the event of a serious accident. And just to ram home this point to uneasy Guyanese, we do not think that any of the Guyanese bigshots who own property in rich Pradoville is without the proper insurance coverage.

What they, therefore, do not deny themselves, or think that we should not worry too much about, must be the same for us. For it is the Guyanese taxpayer who will be burdened with the enormous liabilities should a real disastrous oil spill occur, and we are to find ourselves with less than the fullest insurance coverage possible. Leaders don’t take out of their pockets when the pinch and squeeze come. Those are passed on to ordinary citizens to carry the choking yoke for generations. Leaders do exactly what untouched business people do, they pass on costs to those who come to shop.
Guyanese are the ones who would have to foot any large liability bill that is beyond the US$2B being waved about, as though it is the answer to all of our anxieties. It is not. To our fellow citizens, we make this appeal. Don’t be fooled, don’t let down your guard, don’t take this latest pig in a bag. It is little more than another instance of leadership trickiness, from both the PPP/C Government and Exxon.

We urge our compatriots to think of a few years ago, and that incredible oil contract with its even more incredible two percent royalty. Guyanese were told, actually felt, that they had gotten as good as could be had, only to learn quickly how foolish they were. Today, Exxon comes up with and has the brazenness to float that number ‘two’ again, as in US$2B for oil spill insurance. There must be something devilish in the minds of Exxon’s leaders (and their local political coconspirators) that they think that Guyanese cannot count beyond two. Two percent royalties first, and now two billion for insurance. Any Guyanese who is satisfied with that two percent contract and 2B for insurance will find out too soon that both are too little, and that they are too far gone to correct the problem.