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Royalties – Jagdeo engaging in a royal runaround

Jun 22, 2022 Editorial

Kaieteur News – On the face of it, this was the simplest of questions that could be posed to anyone. It is simpler still when asked of the man in charge of our oil, Guyana’s Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo. Because if anyone should know, it has to be him. The question was and remains: is the 2% royalty that Guyana collects from Exxon recoverable by the company? Amazingly, the Vice President standing as leader and manager of the nation’s oil couldn’t say because he claims he doesn’t know. This is not only unbelievable, it is also highly unacceptable, coming from someone like Mr. Jagdeo.
Mr. Jagdeo likes to come over as the only authority in this country on things to do with oil. He is the only one with the smarts to understand and know to the fullest what are ‘no brainer’ issues to him. We have news for Mr. Jagdeo on this royalty recoverable question: there is nothing more representative of a ‘no brainer’ inquiry than that. The royalties are either recoverable by Exxon, or they are not. There should be no need to be afraid of having to ‘walk back’, as he himself said, anything that he ventures on royalty recovery. For he is the figure, the leader, the agent of this nation who has been closest to oil, studied it more, spoke of it more than any other Guyanese.
Moreover, it is the same Bharrat Jagdeo that has attacked and undermined the few Guyanese who challenge him on oil-related issues, as a matter of patriotic interest and that of conscientious citizenship. One of the elements that he should know the most about, he knows the least. So, he has to consult with the ‘experts’, the lawyers, to get an accurate answer. What he should have at his fingertips, he has to consult on, to ensure that he doesn’t speak out of turn, and have to regret doing so. This would be acceptable from others, but not Mr. Jagdeo, who has made it his duty to stick it to those getting in his way to question him about his handling of our oil wealth. He has never pretended not to know when he goes on the warpath to overpower ‘naysayers’ and ‘critics’, in his defense of the Government’s giving Exxon free passes on things that cost Guyana heavily.
But something that he should know, and in his sleep, is that Exxon has not compiled an inspiring record in how it does business in almost every place, that it goes to explore for oil. Because of the company’s history of tricking and cheating others, because of its corporate robberies all over the map, Mr. Jagdeo should know where we stand on the matter of the already paltry royalty being recoverable by the company under some cover or the other. Guyana’s leading oil man and oil brain just had to know that since Exxon could stoop so low, and be so criminal, as to plunder and pillage its own people, then only the worst could be expected from a corporate villain like Exxon.
Come on, Mr. Jagdeo, Mr. Oil Fighter, Mr. American Corporate Defender-in-Chief, if Exxon could rip-off Americans, then Guyanese are fair game because they don’t count. Because Exxon could take advantage of those on the lower end of America’s economic ladder, Native Americans, then Guyanese are guaranteed that they will not be spared, but ripe for the plucking. When those who used to be called Indians of a different colour don’t matter, then Brown and Black, and others in Guyana’s rainbow count for less that the dregs. Mr. Jagdeo ought to have known that our dregs, the 2% royalty, could full Exxon’s eye, which means that he had to have made that a priority to know beforehand if Exxon was giving us 2% with one hand, but taking it back on the sly with the other.
Our Father’s Day edition headlined Mr. Jagdeo’s remarkable ignorance on this most crucial of questions, this most sensitive matter (“VP Jagdeo unsure if Exxon recovering 2% royalty” -KN June 19). We make no judgments on this state of the self-appointed father of Guyana’s oil wealth, save to say that he should have known as his own name.

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