Question and Answer

Aug 13, 2023 Editorial

Kaieteur News – There are many questions about oil and gas matters that call for straight answers. The more detailed the answers, the better Guyanese are informed of what they are getting for many billions spent in this brand-new sector. A sector that holds so much promise, in which so much of the destiny of Guyanese is enmeshed. Yet, the PPP/C Government, from its leaders to its lawmakers in parliament, is a study of only the paltriest, mainly trickiest, of answers that could be found on something this vital. Five billion more sought for the Wales gas-to-energy project, highly thought of by Vice President Jagdeo, and perhaps a few others in the government, and there are only the skimpiest, dodgiest, of answers.

What is it that the PPP/C Government and the likes of Vice President Jagdeo, and Finance Minister Dr. Singh are so frightened by, over the simple issue of expense details and full disclosures that they dance around related questions? What arrangement has been worked out between the PPP/C Government and ExxonMobil that ties President Ali, Vice President Jagdeo, and Minister Singh, in knots, that limits all three of them, to the hazy and frequently sickly? When our top people in government are reduced to this state of limpness about hugely expensive oil and gas issues, then they are not for the interests of the Guyanese people, they are for ExxonMobil’s interests.

Parliament is the highest forum of deliberation in this country, and there are all these questions, but clear and convincing answers are not presented. The more that Dr. Singh circles around and evades questions with the paucity of “interventions” and “management and supervision” and “components”, the more he looks like a man, a minister, with many heavy secrets hanging over his head, possibly locked securely inside his head. The issues are simple: let the nation see the expenses, give citizens the clearest ideas of what they are paying for in these tens of billions claimed to be spent by ExxonMobil.

It has long been said that the devil is in the details. When the issue under the microscope is oil, then there are more devils than can be found in hell. How many lengths/types of pipelines are being used in the Wales project? How much have we paid for them? When Guyanese know this, then there can be checking, comparing and reconciling, of what ExxonMobil presents as expenses, and how they matchup with real prices. It is time that both the PPP/C Government and the ExxonMobil-led consortium operating our rich oilfields face this fact: neither is trusted to any commendable extent, if at all, by large sections of the Guyanese population. As much as ExxonMobil is welcomed here, and is needed in Guyana for its advanced technologies and world-class skills, the company does not inspire much confidence, and with each daily development, it is trusted less. It has earned this disregard by its arrogance, its greed, and its haemorrhaging and disemboweling of Guyana and all Guyanese, save for a connected few.

When close to $50 billion dollars have been approved this year for this hotly disputed Wales gas-to-energy project, and question after question go unanswered, or disingenuously responded to, then the worst is thought about the manipulations of ExxonMobil, and the evasive actions of the PPP/C Government. Finance Minister Dr. Singh may think that he put on a fancy parliamentary clinic, but all he succeeded in doing was to demonstrate to all Guyanese how he and his government have converted this oil sector into a shabby picnic. It is now customary for Guyanese politicians to be pleased with themselves to come across as a mimic for ExxonMobil, but if only they knew how anemic they sound, how pathetic they appear.

Expenses are the latest in a long and continuing line of oil secrets. When companies and governments see it fit to hide how billions are spent, then it means that they have a whole world of shenanigans to hide. If all were clean and clear with these project expenses, then ExxonMobil would be the first to put them before the Guyanese public, using the PPP/C Government as its channel. When questions are poorly and cleverly addressed, then skullduggeries are likely to reign.

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