Blacklisted companies

Sep 29, 2022 Editorial

Kaieteur News – There are some sayings that ring for a long time with us. Two of them are along these lines: ‘he is a thief, but he is my thief.’ And the second is, while taking some liberties with the original construction: ‘he who is a corrupter to others, is a helpful comrade to us.’ The short and simple of both of those sayings is that those the world condemns is considered a friend because there is a meeting of minds. This is what was bolstered by the caption, “World Bank blacklisted all three Chinese companies that bid for Wales gas plant project – accused of bribing officials, falsifying documents and fraudulent practices” -KN September 27).

This is said immediately: we at this paper are against any blacklisted company being involved in our oil and gas sector, doing any business locally. Whether they are Chinese, Indian, African, even American, they should not be here period. We have enough officials, politicians and bureaucrats, who could be too easily tempted by bribery and the Chinese have earned a reputation for engaging in such shady practices wherever they go to do business. So, there may be that meeting of the minds that we mentioned earlier, and which could only injure our clean governance hopes and prospects.

We have existed with our own long history of documents made to disappear, or those that raise hard questions about their truths and factual basis when they are presented. Currently, there is concern that the Government of Guyana sees it fit to withhold various reports and documents, some of which are related to the vital oil sector. The claim is of confidentiality, or nothing said at all, which alone generates suspicions regarding what this PPP/C Government may have to hide, or fears disclosing. There are calls for the pre-contract audit report to be published, and a civil society group, Article 13, is asking for the complete paper trail on the tax payments by the Guyana Government on behalf of ExxonMobil, as such have been deposited into the Oil Fund. Then, there is the contract signed in the gold sector that we have been clamoring for, but without success. These are just a few of the instances that are up in the air currently.

In all of these situations, matters may be aboveboard, in which instance government, any government and leader, would be quick to respond to public calls and release them for examination. On the other hand, where there is dodging or the dragging of feet by government, as has been going on, then it is a sign that something is wrong, which leads to the necessity to keep whatever it is away from public scrutiny. As could be gathered, we have a problem with all this. So, how could we at this paper, or any other Guyanese, ever support any company that has a history of fraudulent practices to come here to exploit our mouthwatering opportunities? We would never agree to do something of such a nature.

But this is where we are with these three Chinese companies flagged, (blacklisted) by the World Bank. They have been blacklisted; therefore, they should have been automatically delisted from any local participation in anything and everything. The fact that the chiefs of these three companies could think that it is all right for them to tender for the Wales gas plant project is beyond audacity or arrogance. It is confirmation that all three Chinese companies truly believe that they stand a good chance of competing and winning, blacklisted or no blacklisted.

This is revealing on a few fronts. It means that the Chinese are confident that one of them could win the bidding. Also, it speaks to the level of care and competence (due diligence) that Guyana has, in that the three companies are still in the running, and were not excluded from day one. If this is the caliber of people that the PPP/C Government entrusts to oversee the early developments in the Wales gas plant, then we are in poor hands and will pay. We understand that cronyism beats competence any day. Nevertheless, blacklisting means the boot, and those three Chinese companies should not be showing their faces here at all.

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