Exxon billed Guyana US$10.3M for private drivers, US$2.2M in school fees for expats’ children

Oct 24, 2023 ExxonMobil, News, Oil & Gas

Audit of US$7.3B Liza 1 & 2 Bills reveals…

Kaieteur News – A recent audit report has exposed that ExxonMobil Guyana Limited removed US$12.5M from the Stabroek Block account to cover expenses related to transporting its personnel around the country as well the tuition fees for the children of its international workers.

Following the field work done by local consortium, Ramdihal & Haynes Inc., Eclisar Financial, and Vitality Accounting & Consultancy Inc., with the international support from Martindale Consultants, it was found that Exxon charged approximately US$10.3M for private drivers to take its employees in and around the country.

Auditors said the details they reviewed did not contain information to differentiate what trips are taken, by whom, and to where. It therefore means that auditors have no way of telling if Exxon employees alone are racking up those costs. They also had no way of telling if those trips are for work or pleasure.

Specifically, auditors said the 2020 costs were approximately US$400,000 per month and were for vehicle rent, drivers, dispatch, supervision, fuel, and maintenance. Auditors said there are approximately 90 vehicles and eight buses used to transport personnel in-country. Kaieteur News understands that over 95% of the costs were allocated to the Stabroek Block account with the remainder being charged against Canje and Kaieteur (a block Exxon walked away from in September).

Auditors said they also observed that Exxon charged Guyana’s Stabroek Block account US$2.2M to cover for registration, tuition, and other fees required by the Georgetown International Academy, a school attended by the children of expatriates.

It should be noted that this audit report on Exxon’s US$7.3B expenses incurred from 2018 to 2020 is yet to be released to the public. Neither the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) nor the Ministry of Natural Resources would respond to requests by this newspaper over the last month for this to be done.

Another critical point of note is that this audit did not entail a review of every bill related to the 2018 to 2020 period as it was not a forensic audit. In fact, leader of the local consortium involved in the audit, Floyd Haynes, confirmed this with Kaieteur News in a previous interview.

Haynes had said that a forensic audit is done with the aim of identifying fraud and embezzlement with the goal of gathering evidence to be used in a court. He noted however that he and his team were hired to do a cost recovery audit pursuant to the parameters of the 2016 Stabroek Block Production Sharing Agreement (PSA). “The goal is to verify the accuracy or rather the legitimacy and validity of costs claimed,” Haynes had said.

He had further explained that the audit would not examine every single cost incurred by Exxon. He said no audit is ever done that way. Haynes said auditors look at a sample of the costs incurred. He had said that sample is based on a number of things.

“It could be high risk areas that you think have potential for exposure based on past experience or based on having done work in the industry before. So you take a sample of those, you look at it closely and then you ask for corroboration or additional information on those types of things and that’s what we did,” Haynes had said.

Kaieteur News had previously reported that the audit contract that was awarded to Haynes and his team back in 2022 for US$751,000 had a strict four-month deadline for completion. Notably, the US$7.3B costs which the auditors examined pertain to the investments for the Liza Phase One and Liza Phase Two Projects which are currently producing approximately 400,000 barrels of oil per day.

account, driver’s, Private, School, Stabroek Block

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Exxon billed Guyana US$10.3M for private drivers, US$2.2M in school fees for expats’ children

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Exxon billed Guyana US$10.3M for private drivers, US$2.2M in school fees for expats’ children

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