Former GCCI President disrespectful for describing citizens as ‘low life’ who are demanding a change in oil contract – Glenn Lall

Apr 12, 2023 News

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Kaieteur News – Kaieteur News Publisher, Glenn Lall has responded to former president of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), Timothy Tucker, who said those who ask for a renegotiation of the lopsided contract which has been heavily criticised for benefitting ExxonMobil Guyana and its partners more than the country, is “bad for business and low-life mentality”.

Lall has been on the forefront highlighting the lopsided terms in the 2016 Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) Guyana signed onto with Exxon. During an interview with OilNow, Tucker said, “We cannot do business as two-bit hustlers. We have to do business as a business community. You have to be able to do business as a country that says to you, ‘Look, we are here to do business, we are legitimate’,” adding, “We must be able to say ‘Look, our word is our bond… What you see is what you get.’ Not when it becomes profitable, we suddenly change.”

OilNow reported Tucker as saying that if a business makes a deal to buy a farmer’s peppers at $300 per pound, it would be improper for the farmer to suddenly expect more because the price of pepper has raised.“ That is the contractual obligation between agro-processor and farmer. If we encourage our people not to obey and not to stand to things that they signed on and committed to, then we are gonna be going to a terrible place. It is better you leave the oil in the ground and everything else,” Tucker said.

Lall rubbished Tucker’s comment adding, “Your eyes pass me and pass every single Guyanese to call us low life, calling for a change in that ExxonMobil contract…Glenn Lall and the Guyanese people were never and will never be low lives – put that in your pipe and smoke it.  The fight continues, whether you and the leaders like it or not.”

Lall added that knowing how wounded Guyana is with the contract, he never expected such a comment would come from someone who represented the business sector in Guyana. In response to Tucker’s analogy of a farmer accepting what was agreed upon initially for the sale of peppers despite prices being raised, Lall said, “this man got to be out of his mind, to tell a farmer he must not ask for more on his pepper, when the price for fertilizer gone up, workmanship gone up, fuel price gone up and that farmer must not ask for more on his pepper, he must sell his pepper at the same price and suffer a loss.”

He continued, “That is what Timothy Tucker representing the business sector telling us there and anybody who asks for a change in price or renegotiation is a hustler according to Timothy. We agree $300 a pound and we must supply him for $300 a pound although the price gone up all over the world, he alone must make money and the pepper must stick to the contract deal.” Lall stated that while he is aware that we live in a “hustling world” and dealing with hustlers, he posited: “always remember the purpose of life is to make others happy too, and if you can’t do that, don’t hurt them, don’t let them go hungry with pain for your personal gain.”

The 2016 deal gives Guyana an industry-low 2% royalty. This publication has highlighted that presently, Guyana shares revenue with ExxonMobil after the company deducts 75 percent towards the cost incurred to develop the resources in the Stabroek Block. This arrangement, with the lack of ring-fencing, sees Guyana paying for projects that are yet to commence production activities. Each month bills from future producing developments are added to the list of expenses to be cost recovered by Exxon. After the 75 percent is deducted to pay back the oil company, Guyana then shares 50/50 of the 25 percent remaining with Exxon as profits. This amounts to 12.5 percent of profits from the operations.

Also, under the signed deal, Guyana has agreed to, under the taxation provisions, to pay ExxonMobil’s share of Corporation and Income Tax. As such it would mean, that Guyana foregoes each year, billions of US dollars. On top of this, documentation to this effect is then provided to the US based company allowing it to not have to pay any taxes in its home country for its earnings overseas. Lall has argued that instead of approving more US multi-billion projects for the oil giants, the Government of Guyana should make use of the clause in the contract which allows policymakers to bring ExxonMobil and its partners back to the table to work out better terms to benefit the Guyanese people just as much as the oil companies have been benefiting.

Kaieteur News had highlighted that the provision obtains at Article 13.2 of the PSA but comes with the caveat – the renegotiations and happens only with a signed written agreement between all of the parties involved. According to that provision in the PSA, commonly referred to as the contract, “This Agreement shall not be amended or modified in respect except by written agreement entered into by all the parties which shall state the date upon which the amendment or modifications shall become effective.”

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• Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), Glenn Lall, Kaieteur News, Publisher, Timothy Tucker

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