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GRA has authority to release Exxon’s audit reports – Jagdeo
Kaieteur News – Vice President (VP), Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo made it clear on Thursday that the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) is the only agency authorized to release any of the audit reports on ExxonMobil’s Stabroek Block expenses. He said GRA can do so if it pleases.
Vice-President – Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo
During an engagement with members of the local media fraternity at Freedom House, Jagdeo was also keen to note that GRA, and not the Ministry of Natural Resources, is the sole authority with responsibility for pronouncing on technical information captured in those reports.
He made the foregoing comments in response to queries from Kaieteur News on the status of an audit into ExxonMobil’s expenses totalling US$7.3B for the period 2018 to 2020. That audit was conducted by VHE Consulting, a registered partnership between Ramdihal & Haynes Inc, Eclisar Financial, and Vitality Accounting & Consultancy Inc. The local consortium, hired back in May last year, received support from International firms—SGS and Martindale Consultants.
Speaking on the status of the audit report, the Vice President said it is now with GRA for a review of the findings.
He further noted that the tax agency already submitted its recommendation to the Natural Resources Ministry on August 8, 2023 to close the inaugural audit into ExxonMobil’s expenses totalling US$1.7B. Those costs were incurred from 1999 to 2017. The audit of those expenses was done by IHS Markit, a British Consultancy group which flagged US$214M in questionable expenses by Exxon.
As to the official disclosure of those documents, Jagdeo said, “If GRA wants to release the IHS Markit report, we don’t have a problem; if GRA wants to release the other report (on the audit of US$7.3B) that is fine with me…but they must make that call on anything to do with audits.”
Going forward, VP Jagdeo stressed the government’s commitment towards building local capacity for the audit of ExxonMobil’s expenses.
Jagdeo explained, “…We made it clear that we want to build capacity on these matters…We were hoping to get feedback from a policy standpoint on the quality of the audit (for US$7.3B) because we brought in local people for the first time for that purpose.”
GRA Commissioner General, Godfrey Statia
He added, “I am looking policy wise for a report on the quality of the audit and whether bringing in local people allows us to do an audit to industry standards or it compromises the process because there has been a lot of push back from another section of society saying that locals can’t handle this…”
While he awaits the referenced feedback, the Vice President said the government is also looking to the next phase of auditing ExxonMobil’s expenses incurred for the period 2020-2022. This will include scrutiny of expenses relating to the US$9B Payara project in the Stabroek Block, set to come on stream later this year and produce 220,000 barrels of oil per day.
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