Audit of Exxon bills over before it started

Aug 16, 2022 Letters

Dear Editor,

Guyanese have an old saying that goes like this: ‘mouth open, story jump out.’ This is exactly what happened with a fine Guyanese brother, scholar, and recently created auditor by the name of Professor Floyd Haynes. There I was knowing my place and going about my business when I passed the caption “Audit of Exxon’s US$9B+ costs underway” (SN August 14). I actually passed by and then turned back, for I sensed that some Guyanese truths might lurk. I am delighted to share that the grand professor did not disappoint.

“The idea that Exxon has been overbilling and overcharging is grossly misleading and it is not fair to mislead the public.” Ahem, thanks Professor Haynes for that peculiar piece of auditing wisdom, which I recommend should be the reaction of all Guyanese. I really hope that this sudden, overnight discovery of a fine Guyanese auditor possessing the necessary forensic skills that were so glaringly missing, per the Hon. Vice President, is jesting. For auditors must keep an open mind, if not a critical one, and all the while harbouring a healthy level of skepticism; the thought is that cynicism is too much, too out of place, regardless of the record of most corners, be they infidels where the American oil company is concerned, or partisan cheerleaders for whom to be anti-Exxon is the equivalent of being anti-PPP. Yes, this is how backward, and confoundedly foolish citizens can be in this blighted wilderness.

Editor, I believe that it would have been more constructive if Professor Haynes and his team of audit experts went about their business with not just the appearance of no leaning in any direction (for or against Exxon), but also actually staying silent about their real audit objectives, whatever those may have been. I will bell the cat by saying that such objectives are not in the best interests of this wounded and woefully misled nation, but what serves the additions and visions of Exxon and the PPP Government. For there it was that the good professor himself had a moment of rare frankness in showing his hand as to where he truly stands, and how he plans on going about this most sensitive of audits. Though Exxon is not entitled to any benefit of the doubt (it has not so earned, given its Guyanese predations), it is due a clean and professional audit by genuinely capable people. By the same standard, the Guyanese people are due an audit saturated with value and the fullest authenticity possible. This is gives them justice for their money (and trust) in Professor Haynes’s team with the audit exercise now underway. What is now obvious is that the professor turned banker transformed into auditor has made clear where he stands, in that overbilling and overcharging are sensational exaggerations, and damaging to the tender nerves of Exxon and its people. I think that he could not have been more wrong.

I point to my fellow Guyanese that it was a well-known and respected Guyanese-based auditor (himself a many hated fellow) who took a look at some half a billion in bills submitted by Exxon for an earlier offshore oil project and he had difficulty with about US$90M of that total, which was close to 20 percent of the company’s costs handed to Guyana for payment. I recall that the veteran domestic auditor also spoke less than glowingly about adherence to international accounting presentation standards in the work Exxon delivered to Guyana. Exxon has progressed from bad to unbelievable, but here we are with this profound declaration, almost a Delphic oracle, from Professor Haynes about what is misleading, and what was unsaid, but may also be (in his head and from his closed-door arrangements) a done deal, one that has to be clambered over, completed, and concluded in one way only. That is, this farce of an audit may qualify to be either fine, folly, or a new strain of fraud itself wreaked upon the Guyanese people. I know where I stand. It should be noted I said nothing about that joke of timeline set, which they tell the gullible is not written in stone. As my fellow Americans would say, go tell all this bull to the Marines. Guyanese may say it as haul your ass and stop making a jackass of all of us.

Sincerely,

GHK Lall

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