‘I will not reveal oil plans and names of oil and gas committee members’- Norton tells nation

Mar 06, 2024 ExxonMobil, News, Oil & Gas

Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo and Opposition Leader, Aubrey Norton

…afraid VP Jagdeo will steal their ideas

Kaieteur News – Leader of the Opposition, Aubrey Norton is reluctant to reveal the names of the oil and gas committee members appointed by the political body. More importantly however, the Opposition will not reveal its plans for the management of the oil sector until the opportune time, since it believes the government will adopt their policies.

Norton, during his weekly press conference on Thursday, was responding to a request by Kaieteur News to name the members of the oil and gas committee and their qualifications, as well as the body’s plan for the sector.

Members of civil society had previously noted their disgust over the Opposition’s silence on matters relative to the rapidly growing petroleum industry. The Leader of the Opposition has been relatively mute on oil and gas related matters, unless asked to give his views during press conferences.

Norton had previously said there was a special committee established to discuss and guide the Opposition on the fairly new industry. He has however made it clear that the names of those persons will not be made public.

The Leader of the Opposition said, “I have answered the first question before many times, no I will not say who comprise our oil and gas committee. I can say to you that it has expertise both at home and abroad.”

As a seasoned politician, Norton said he knows for a fact that “people will seek to access those persons and influence their positions.”

In fact, he mocked that this government would even “bribe itself”, so the Opposition has to employ strategic methods to protect these individuals.

“In some regard, you are dealing with a government that would bribe itself. So why would I tell a government like this who are the members of our oil and gas group. I wouldn’t and I have no apologies for it,” he said in response to Kaieteur News question.

Further, Norton would only say that the group comprises eight specialists.

When it comes to the committee’s plans for the sector, the Opposition Leader explained, “I have said that we will release our oil and gas plans at the appropriate time. Let me remind people what is happening. I went to Mocha at a public meeting and said the APNU/AFC in government will, having noted that diabetes and hypertension are critical and that there are a certain amount of health problems here, I said at a meeting in Mocha APNU/AFC government will put resources into helping the average man to access those health services.”

Soon after, Norton said, government revealed plans to offset medical tests for cervical cancer. He also noted that the Opposition announced a rent to own scheme and a people centered development that government has now adopted.

To this end, he said, “We are clear that we have to time when we release whatever we want to release. I can say to you we have clear plans and we have been saying some of the things we will do in the oil sector and Kaieteur News and Stabroek News covered them, so it’s not like if we haven’t put plans out there and so I am saying to you at the appropriate time, we will put our plans out there.”

Commenting on Norton’s position to not name his advisers and reveal his plans for the sector, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo said the attitude was nothing short of infantile.

Jagdeo told reporters he listened to the Opposition Leader’s press conference and believes it is juvenile. He reasoned, “If they tell the country who their oil and gas advisors are then the PPP will steal their ideas. Since when do we steal ideas from APNU? But they can’t tell you who their advisors are, the reporter asked who are your advisers on oil and gas, and Norton said oh a lot of them are international advisors etcetera but we can’t tell you our ideas because PPP will steal them. What sort of juvenile kind of Opposition Leader we have?”

The Vice President said only an infantile approach to such serious development matters would justify such a response. Further, he pointed out that the Opposition is expected to compete with its ideas, rather than fuel its arguments with racism.

Committee, Norton, oil, Plans, reveal

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