ExxonMobil’s people prosperity, Guyanese people poverty

Aug 02, 2023 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Just look at those compensation numbers for ExxonMobil’s top people, which are largely from Guyana’s rich, cheap oil. It is rich in quality and cheap by the barrel. If the people at the top of ExxonMobil’s food chain could rake in so much, it stands to reason that those below them also came in for that extra sweet something in their compensation package. While the people at ExxonMobil bask in the sun and have fun from cheap Guyanese oil, Guyanese are hanging by their fingernails to find daily sustenance, and condemned to poverty’s graveyard.

Look closer at those numbers again, as presented in the news article titled, ‘ExxonMobil’ executives given salary increases on record-breaking profits’ (KN, July 29, 2023). They are more than a nice increase, they are an extravagance, and a sizable fraction of the money those top people at ExxonMobil are pocketing comes from Guyana’s rich, cheap oil. Our oil is top of line quality, and is produced under a contract with dirt cheap terms, so the sales and profit margins are much bigger than normal for ExxonMobil. Its executives are cashing in on Guyana’s oil, while Guyanese are stretching out their hands for any help they can get to ease their gnawing hunger pangs.

First, there is CEO Darren Woods, whose monthly pay went up by almost GY$1.5 million. It is more than what most Guyanese make in a year, and they are the true owners of this oil on which ExxonMobil’s people capitalize so handsomely. Even more spectacularly, Mr. Woods’s bonus went up by more than 100%, and to the tune of a whopping US$3.24 million. That is GY$700 million in new bonus rewards for Mr. Darren Woods alone. Meanwhile, Guyanese teachers and public servants are waiting around for the measly 7% or thereabouts from the PPPC Government, and pensioners are left to struggle with a GY$5,000 (US$20) increase in 2023.

Just so that Guyanese get a real understanding of how ExxonMobil is making gold out of our oil wealth, we present the new compensation numbers for a couple of other top executives at this mammoth American oil company. Ms. Karen Mikells’ salary increased by over 250%, and bonus by over US$2.4 million. Further, the bonus of Mr. Jack Williams flared upwards by over US$2.7 million, and that of Mr. Neil Chapman by US$2.1 million. These oil pirates are collecting by the American millions, but over 90% of Guyanese are not even getting 1% of their annual increase in bonus amounts.

As we weigh how much these ExxonMobil executives were rewarded by their board of directors, (who themselves, in turn, would get to taste the honey from Guyana’s oil), it would be interesting to know how fabulously another ExxonMobil exploiter and enforcer did for himself. We are talking about none other than ExxonMobil’s Guyana Country Head, Mr. Alistair Routledge. However Mr. Routledge made out, it has to be within a reasonable vicinity of those millions doubled for Darren Woods and other plunderers of Guyana’s patrimony. After all, he is the new imperial chief cracking the whip in Guyana, and keeping Guyanese, who are angry and unruly over what they get from the dirty ExxonMobil 2016 contract, in check.

When we think of how ExxonMobil executives help themselves to our oil riches, with the help of collaborating Guyanese political bigwigs, those compensation increases are not only an abomination, but they are also obscene. ExxonMobil’s people are celebrating, while Guyanese are mourning at their ongoing loss, in this their time of great oil discoveries.

This stark and impoverishing reality of the greatest number of Guyanese is possible because there is one Guyanese leader, who emphasizes “sanctity of contract” and another is fearful about inflation, should there be more to give to Guyanese. What has become more obvious to more citizens is that one has lost his memory of previous powerful commitments made, while the other has converted himself into a corkscrew. Somebody is naked in bed with somebody, and it is not rank and file citizens sleeping with ExxonMobil. Executives at ExxonMobil (not forgetting Mr. Routledge) celebrate their good fortune, while Guyanese grieve over their misfortune. This country is ripe for urgent expressions of its bottled-up passions.

cheap, Editorial, Guyanese, poverty, Prosperity

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ExxonMobil’s people prosperity, Guyanese people poverty

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