Tell the Guyanese people, Mr. Routledge

Apr 03, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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H@rd Truths by GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – Mr. Alistair Routledge is more than Exxon’s Country head in Guyana.  Mr. Routledge has earned a well-deserved reputation as being the company’s chief propagandist.  The only one who can match him, even surpass him in this department, is Guyana’s clever Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo.  Now, Mr. Routledge has been invited, is pushed, I would say, even challenged by Mr. Chris Ram, noted Guyanese lawyer and numbers man, to provide answers for the Guyanese people on 30 oil-related questions.  Oil-related, not anything to do with the kind of democracy or government or leadership that Guyanese live with but what is founded on and driven by oil.

Now, Mr. Ram may be a tad peeved at me, but I will go easy on Mr. Routledge.  Take it as an Easter gift from one American to another.  If the man from Exxon feels that his company is better served by sidestepping some of those 30 questions, then that generous leeway is afforded.  He, however, is not extended the luxury of picking and choosing which ones he can answer.  Whatever he answers, the Exxon Guyana Country Head must come forward early with answers that tell Guyanese what they need to know.  Because Mr. Routledge is recognized by me as the total package, a complete oilman, Mr. Ram’s questions ought to be smooth sailing for him.  I just said he must tell this nation early, and there is a reason for doing so.  For the longer he hides behind Exxon’s skirts, or makes himself invisible, or lets his voice not be heard, then the swifter and more pronounced the discredit will be.  There are some people (including a handful of Guyanese) who do not have much regard for esteemed corporate icons, those who are of guile with a smile.  I am one of those.  Tell the Guyanese people, Mr. Routledge.  With characteristic American aggressiveness and audacity, I stand before him, and wish that I don’t have to get his face.  But I will, if he does not come clean, and come straight.

For me, these are the important-must answer-questions.  First, how much did Shell pay Exxon for those farm-ins (Q1)?  Next, why is there, how does he explain [away], that US$92M gap in Exxon’s expenses re precontract costs (Q3)?  Then, how can there not be questions or concerns about the ethics of collecting tax receipts for taxes not paid (Q9)?  Moreover, and this is the burly granddaddy, how much has the lack of ring-fencing provisions diminished Guyana’s share of Profit Oil since 2020 (Q18)?  Further, how much new oil (billions of barrels) has been found in the last eight discoveries that Exxon itself announced (Q26)?  If Mister Routledge cannot answer these few that I have selected, how can he answer anything?  How can Exxon not be seen as precisely what it is?  That is, a rapacious corporate predator?  An American vampire?  And now a Texas Chainsaw operator out for blood (and money) stalking Guyana?  Not fully answering Mr. Ram’s questions leads to those conclusions.

Ponder this: at different times, the patrimony of the Guyanese people has been heralded as a ‘crown jewel’, and ‘world class’, and ‘unprecedented’.  Conspicuously, all those superlatives are only in the context of what they mean for Exxon and its own people.  All things considered, this oil is Guyanese patrimony, not that of Exxon first, and its people next. In the beginning, it was 5.5 billion barrels, then 11 billion.  Thus, I have more questions of my own: how many more billions of barrels are in those eight new discoveries?  If the people’s oil cannot be disclosed in its fullness to them, then how does it not amount to nothing but a dark conspiracy between Exxon and the PPP [govt]?  Also, how does Exxon call itself a trusted partner when it conceals and wiggles, when it behaves like some cheap prostitute in running through the pockets of this country to raid every damn penny from it?  Partners don’t do that, Mr. Routledge; low end corporate prostitutes do such things.  If prostitute is too offensive to Mr. Routledge’s tender Florence Nightingale sensitivities, then I do him another favour: I replace prostitute with a corporate parasite, a corporate plague, foisted on Guyanese, devouring their hopes, and diluting their rights.  When Ram’s 30 questions are segregated into small handfuls only, each handful condemns Exxon for its parasitic sucking and pestilential draining of the blood of every citizen of this richly endowed country.  Even the well-rewarded insiders in the Ali and Jagdeo camps would be able to do better, notwithstanding how richly they do presently.

Finally, Mr. Routledge, don’t arrange for some dubious letter writer or friendly pundit (heard to be paid on the qt by Exxon) to rush to the forefront with answers to those 30 questions of Mr. Ram’s.  Further, I offer one more piece of free advice, Mr. Routledge: responding is not a job for any public relations department.  They are detected for what they are: snow jobs and con jobs.  Sugarcoating and honey dripping productions that only fool the gullible.  I urge Mr. Routledge to answer all 30 questions in his own words, with his own wisdom, and from the warehouse of Exxon’s Guyana archives. He should know them like the scent of his own sweat.  Most of all, I am looking forward to Mr. Routledge coming forward and standing as an honourable American, in his delivering (hopefully) of the truths about Guyana’s oil.  Those that are so have what is universal, what is inarguable, about them.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

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• Chris Ram, Exxon’s, GHK Lall, Guyanese, H@rd Truths

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