President Ali Cherry-picks

Apr 11, 2023 Editorial

Kaieteur News – President Ali has every right to voice publicly what he thinks that the local media should make its higher priorities in our new and challenging oil and gas sector. His Excellency said that the “Media should report on how oil developed countries rather than focus on likely damage from oil spill in Guyana -President Ali” (KN April 2).

As much as we thank the President for his counsel, this is rather astonishing coming from a head-of-state in a country that knows next to nothing about oil. Instead of disagreeing, even attacking, the focus and discomforting revelations of the media on the oil sector, the President should be pleased that the media is this alert, and that it is highlighting areas in need of significant and urgent improvements.

President Ali has offered guidance on what should be highlighted in our reporting. We hope that he stops there, and does not make it his duty to tell us what to think next. For when the national leader is comfortable telling the media to pretend that certain dangers do not exist, or are overblown, then it is reasonable to believe that some of the other areas in the oil sector that are problematic for both ExxonMobil and his government, he would prefer that they not be reported on, at all.

This cannot be, given how ExxonMobil has dealt with Guyana. If this American company had dealt honestly, fairly, and justly with Guyana from the inception, then there may have been cause to listen to the President. In view of ExxonMobil’s using all of its accumulated wisdoms to drain this country dry, only the worst can be thought of it, with terrible consequences for this country. Today, President Ali has a problem with the media and its oil spill reporting and what could result. Tomorrow, it follows that he could find objectionable the media’s (most likely meaning this publication) reporting on the continuing delays in the US$7.3 billion audit report. He may be intolerant of its insistence that the same report be shared with Guyanese for them to determine if ExxonMobil is either a trusted and honourable partner, or if it is a grasping financial predator. Then the day after, the President could grow more furiously impatient and dismissive than he has been with the incessant independent media calls for renegotiation of the 2016 oil contract.

Still later, he may decide that it is unconstructive for the media to persist with calls for ring-fencing of ExxonMobil’s project expenses, which are a mystery and raises the specter of how this country is possibly being taken advantage of again by a clever oil partner. What Guyanese could hear from their own President is how good ExxonMobil has been to Guyana, and in so many ways. Just like how he emphasises reporting on how other countries developed from their oil wealth, President Ali sounds as if he would be pleased if the media should focus on how much the 2% royalty and zero taxes and all the other hemorrhaging elements of the ExxonMobil self-enriching contract are such wonderful things for Guyana. In other words, that this publication should parrot ExxonMobil Country Head, Mr. Alistair Routledge’s spin and words about how there is nothing better in Guyana.

We agree that this nation’s oil wealth can develop Guyana, but at what rate? What rate when so many Guyanese are struggling seven years after the first reports of oil found? Further, in prior times, President Ali and Vice President Jagdeo had so much to say about how ruinous the ExxonMobil contract was to Guyana. One would think that if both of these national leaders were genuinely for more and better for Guyanese, then they would welcome the media directing the spotlight on the weaknesses embedded (like oil spill coverage) in the contract, so that pressure is constantly applied to ExxonMobil. President and Vice President, therefore, should be looking upon media reporting as a resource, and the voice of the people that cannot be denied. Instead, the media is looked upon as an obstacle and an enemy. This begs the question: on whose side is President Ali on? Many Guyanese have concluded that it is not on that of this country.

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