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Oil – how Guyana cheats itself

Jul 23, 2022 Editorial

Kaieteur News – “…not even maybe 10 percent of the legal, regulatory, human and other factors in place to ensure that in terms of what is in the contract, we get every ounce of it even as we move or attempt to get renegotiation…”  This excerpt was from the article captioned, “Seven years on…Guyana still to protect itself from being cheated on oil revenues…Former Minister Jordan acknowledges flaws in Exxon contract” (KN July 20).  We think that this is accurate in every respect starting from flawed contract to lack of self-protection to lengthy time lag to what is not in place and the meaning of all this for Guyana.

We can all agree, and can continue to agree that this country’s oil contract with Exxon is deeply flawed, extremely costly to us, and a huge shadow hanging over the nation’s head.  We don’t think that there is any citizen of this country, who would wholeheartedly and completely support the terms and conditions embedded in this contract.  This includes even the former Coalition Government people directly responsible for its horrible existence.  This is where matters are, and we have some choices before us.

The present PPP/C Government can take the contract and joyfully dance with it for all that it is worth in efforts to denounce the former APNU+AFC Coalition Government for its total failure on the biggest thing ever to hit Guyana.  At the end of all the political showboating and grandstanding, Guyanese are still in the same place.  Dancing on the tombstone of the former Coalition Government for the contract’s many deficiencies does not do one ounce of good for one citizen of this country.

We say that there are better ways for the leaders of the PPP/C Government to appreciate the limitations of what is before them.  Leaders in the government better serve the interests of this country by putting their heads together to come up with ways to work with those same limitations to get the most for us, despite the punishing, crippling restraints.  This is what wise leaders and good governments do.  This is what the former minister has in mind if we interpret his words correctly.  It is that we can still gasp our way out of the ashes of this contract, and grasp at the facilities in it that empower us to maximise what should come to us.

We think that former Minister Jordan is on to something if only because it makes sense.  We can moan and groan for all we want, but our circumstances always come back to the same place: the contract remains on the table.  Like he said, and we say it, we have a responsibility to look out for ourselves.  If only we have in place a fraction of the framework that is necessary for us to oversee, and actually exercise robust overseership, over our oil wealth, monstrous contract and all, then the probability is higher that we reap fully what is due to us.  If only we gird our hips, and wrap our minds around our situation, with focused energy and honest dedication, then there is so much more that we can do to look out for ourselves and put a check on any excesses of a partner that is neither that reputable nor ranking in the trust department.

Rather than screaming and endlessly sounding off about the negatives of the contract, and they are negatives, leaders in the PPP/C Government have a duty to erect the framework that all of us know ought to have been further ahead already.  We can go through a long list of the building blocks of that compulsory framework, but limit ourselves to legal, financial, institutional, and environmental for the time being.  There must be the right people, the right systems, and the right mandates, all forming part of the whole that is the right architecture that is on the job for us, in how and what is watched, scrutinised, screened, objected to, and reported.

It is a feature of life that the hand that is dealt is played to the best of abilities.  We haven’t done so, not the previous Coalition Government, not this current PPP/C Government.  This is a tragedy itself, isn’t it?

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