Latest update December 23rd, 2024 3:40 AM
Mar 07, 2024 Editorial
Kaieteur News – Guyana’s chief policymaker, Bharrat Jagdeo now has a problem on each occasion that he dares to speak about the nation’s oil and gas sector. When he opens his mouth on oil, there is a dwindling group of Guyanese who believe a word that he says.
Most times that he puts his positions out in public, Guyanese with knowledge and substance challenge what he says, make him look like a loser trying his hand at delivering a winner for ExxonMobil. Part of the problem for Jagdeo is that he chooses to stay silent, and the worst suspicions are cemented about his management of the incredibly rich oil sector. He doesn’t speak and share one of his patented and pathetic defenses for ExxonMobil, and he is in trouble. He speaks and delivers his usual unconvincing concoctions, and he makes himself into a bigger laughingstock with Guyanese, including his own voters.
Two Guyanese of distinction took him to task on the burning and worrying issue of an oil spill. How much protection does Guyana have, who is responsible for that protection, and where is the evidence of such coverage, a parent company guarantee no less. Chartered Accountant and attorney-at-law, Chris Ram, and engineer and former Executive Director of Guyana’s Environmental Protection Agency, Dr. Vincent Adams, have exposed chief policymaker Jagdeo’s representations on what Guyana has for protection in the event of an oil spill. We at this publication assert that Mr. Ram and Dr. Adams shredded Jagdeo’s oil spill insurance statements and reduced him to a figure of blinding weaknesses.
Chartered Accountant Ram examined the financials of ExxonMobil Guyana Ltd (EMGL) and noted that the value of the subsidiary’s assets amounted to US$7B, and not the US$20B that is being touted by Jagdeo. Many Guyanese have arrived at their own sharp conclusions, as to why their Vice President and their chief policymaker are engaging in these defensive actions for ExxonMobil. But it is only Jagdeo himself, who knows the driving forces behind why he is so much about inflating the company’s assets here and making himself look pitiful in so doing.
We believe that he recognizes the porous character of his representations of ExxonMobil’s local assets, and his flawed advocacies on behalf of the company. It is why Jagdeo rages and lashes out at women reporters, which is part of his strategy to coverup his faulty facts, his feeble lines of argument. Jagdeo is now his own worst enemy, for whenever he sums up the courage to speak about protection (full) for Guyana, he is like a man without his pants, a leader without much substance.
This was what the former head of the EPA, Dr. Adams, pointed out about Jagdeo on the same disturbing oil spill protection issue. Simply put, what Jagdeo is selling to Guyanese as protection from ExxonMobil is what has already been paid for by Guyana’s own oil revenues. The billions in assets that the chief policymaker waves in front of Guyanese, like a winning lottery ticket, are what was bought and paid for by Guyanese money. It means, therefore, that Guyana is paying for its own oil spill protection using its own fully paid for assets. In Jagdeo’s scenario, Guyana is rescuing itself, while ExxonMobil is way in the background, probably totally out of the picture.
Meaning, in how it is unfettered and financially uninvolved if an oil spill occurs. This is how Jagdeo entangles himself, weaves his webs for ExxonMobil, which come back to trap him and choke him. It pays to note that the chief policymaker of the Guyanese people is no longer ashamed today of how ridiculous he makes himself look. He simply does not care how agitated and distorted he becomes when he tries these sleights of hand to insulate ExxonMobil from being fully bound to protecting Guyana. A big oil spill we have warned of could become the essence of a national crisis. Jagdeo’s distortions are now plastered across his face, drips from his tone of voice, oozes in his body language.
Jagdeo has lost credibility. There are raging doubts about his commitment to the Guyanese people. This man should not be spearheading the oil and gas sector. Jagdeo is bad for Guyanese.
Dec 23, 2024
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