ExxonMobil showing its true colours

Aug 08, 2023 Editorial

Editorial…

Kaieteur News – ExxonMobil is showing all of Guyana who is the real boss around here. ExxonMobil has passed its orders to the PPPC Government, and its leading lights, now reduced to playful pups, without any bark in their bodies. ExxonMobil calls the shots, and Guyanese politicians rollover and make it their culture to come across as comedians, those without any residual self-respect. Now ExxonMobil is spreading its wings, as it takes aim at the last bastion standing in its way in Guyana. Believe it or not, but ExxonMobil’s people are now telling the people on Guyana’s judiciary how they must do their work.

Incredibly, this arrogant American supergiant oil company is now telling the High Court of Guyanese where it can go, and where it should not go. ExxonMobil now has the audacity almost to instruct Guyana’s High Court not to interfere with the work of the local Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as such activities relate to the Wales gas-to-energy project. The reach of this voracious foreign exploiter of an oil company now knows no bounds, and concludes that it can throw its weight around in the local arena, and push any and all Guyanese however it feels, so that its visions are fulfilled.

When ExxonMobil dares to push the envelope this far, and actually leans on local jurists, by calling for noninterference in the work of the EPA, it is just another lash on the already raw camel’s back. There is no way that the likes of an ExxonMobil, as gigantic and overpowering as it is, would dream of trying something as intrusive as this in a real country with a real government with real leaders. The people of ExxonMobil know that they risk the company being hauled over the coals for overreach, and they themselves being sharply wrapped on the knuckles, f not boxed on their ears.

In rawer terms, try that somewhere else, and the roof collapses. Here, and to our regret and rage, this American oil company has captured for itself the powers of the president, twisted the neck of the chief oil minister, and gutted the standing of the leading opposition, to the point that it is not even a phantom of itself. Having succeeded in doing very well in deflating all of those pressure points, ExxonMobil has now clearly set its sights on disemboweling the local judiciary.

It is not for ExxonMobil, or any other, not even the executive arm of the Government of Guyana, to take it upon itself to lecture Guyana’s High Court about where it can stick its nose, and where it cannot. If Guyana’s own head of state cannot, or should not be doing any such thing, then ExxonMobil should be given a swift kick in the derriere to make it know its place, and mind its manners. Guyana’s EPA is subject to scrutiny and the authority of the local judiciary should matters be brought to the latter’s attention regarding dangerous lapses of the former. ExxonMobil does not need any education on this, yet in a sign of its unrestrained haughtiness, it ventures into the murky waters of passing what can only be interpreted as veiled orders to the local judiciary.

No doubt this is a consequence of the company’s cozy relationship with the ruling PPPC Government, and the kind and gentle condition that it has cultivated in the major APNU opposition. History has taught new oil producing countries of the world a host of horrible lessons about the ExxonMobils in the fields of oil play. One of the most enduring is this one: give an oil major an inch of rope, and it will strangle all local hope. Give it the green light to run amok in the local environment, and it will mangle any man or woman that gets in its way. Members of the Guyana judiciary are slowly coming to this understanding.

It is ExxonMobil’s way, or none at all. The latest manifestation is that Guyana’s judiciary ought not to touch, not to interfere with, what the EPA does, no matter how damaging such is to the wellbeing of Guyanese. The EPA is already a sitting duck, now ExxonMobil wishes to convert Guyana’s judiciary to a limp, toothless plastic doll.

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