Media workers slam lack of transparency in oil and gas sector

May 02, 2022 News

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…cite dearth in public information, education campaign

Kaieteur News -Local media houses continue to express disappointment over governments’ poor posture when it comes to transparency and accountability within the oil and gas sector.
They again registered concerns about the lack of information as well as public education on the oil and gas sector. When President of the Guyana Press Association (GPA) Nazima Raghubir, appeared on Kaieteur Radio’s Guyana’s Oil and You Programme last week Thursday she told listeners that she thought after the 2020 elections, information on oil and gas would be more forthcoming. She said it is her view that everything involving tax payers’ money should be an open book. She said that since 2015 information was kept quiet under the last government when oil was struck and a contract signed with ExxonMobil for the resources development. She said while several excuses were offered as to why documents were not made public then, she thought things would have been a bit different post-2020.
“I thought we would have been given more regular updates on this particular industry. I still see Exxon making announcements when it should be the government of Guyana. How many times are we gonna do this where the company is making the announcement ahead of the government of a sovereign nation,” the GPA President questioned.
Raghubir continued that apart from the Natural Resource Minister, there are several persons within government and within the opposition whose job she believes it is to be providing all the necessary information. She added her disappointment toward the lack of education drives that would allow citizens a chance to learn about the new industry. Raghubir said that she also expected to see the continuance of post Cabinet briefings that occurred under the pre 2015 People’s Progressive Party (PPP) administration. That engagement she said would have provided for reporters’ questions on oil and gas to be addressed.
“The most you can do is providing the public with the information let them see what is going on and let them make their own informed decisions.” Raghubir said she thought public engagements and educational events on oil and gas would have also occurred post 2020, but that was not done. The GPA President hopes that going forward with the recently passed Natural Resource Fund and its committee, information coming out of there would be made public since it deals directly with the money citizen’s would have received in exchange for oil. And that the type of publicity, she said, involves live streaming to help increase citizens’ information base.
Kemol King, a journalist, said that government should make more information available to the public since they are in possession of the necessary data. He said that, “We know that international oil companies report information to the government. ExxonMobil has to report this information to the government every day. So we know they have the information.” King said however that when the said information is asked of the government, reporters are told to put in a request for it. “But I know that there are many countries where you don’t have to go and ask you don’t have to go through a request process to say who you are and what information you want.” Anybody should be able to go on a website and find basic information as citizens and tax payers, he opined. Editor in Chief for the Guyana Standard Abena Rockcliffe-Campbell reminded of the tailored answers that were initially given when the media sought answers about the new sector. “While I am seeing an effort to move away from that… it’s like you’re making the effort on this hand and on the other hand,… when information is asked for in certain other areas reporters are told to wait and that they have to go through a process.” She said that the government has a Public Affairs minister and that position could be used more in the dissemination of public information. She suggested that when information is requested of the government, it should be placed on the government’s petroleum website so that information remains available and someone else would not have to make a request to access the same information.
Kaieteur New’s senior reporter Kiana Wilburg in her contribution also believed that the new government would have provided more information on oil and gas given their calls for access to information while they were still in opposition. Wilburg said that there is a deficit in transparency and accountability by the government since the media “really expected more.” She believes however, that there is a lack of respect for the questions that reporters ask, and the job they must perform in informing the nation and keeping the politicians accountable.

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