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Jagdeo promises again to release Exxon Audit Reports
Kaieteur News – A month ago Vice President (VP) Bharrat Jagdeo promised to release Exxon’s audit report to the public. The promise came after this publication had informed the VP at his February 29th weekly press conference, about the hardships and futile attempts to get the report from the Guyana Revenue Authority as he had suggested.
Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo
Jagdeo had said then that, “So let me find out why this one [one of the audit reports] is not in the public domain.” He had promised the media then to look into the matter.
At his weekly press conference this Thursday he was again asked about the reports. This time Jagdeo once again promised that, “I will look into this matter directly (to see) what’s holding it up. Personally I will look into this matter.”
It is important to note that there have been two audits conducted so far to review the multibillion expenses of ExxonMobil in the lucrative Stabroek Block. The audit of the US $1.6B incurred from 1999-2017 was done by a British Firm IHS-Markit. The second was done by a local consortium, VHE, supported by an overseas company for some US$7.3B in expenses racked up by the Oil Company from 2018 to 2020.
Jagdeo said that while one of the audit reports may be publicly available, he will find out why the other has not been made available. It must be noted that the two audit reports handed over to the government were never released through the appropriate government channels. Instead, the documents were leaked to sections of the media that widely publicized the findings. The Vice-President has repeatedly said that he and his Cabinet want to stay far away from getting involved with audits to avoid political interference and has directed the media to get the documents from GRA because it has the authority to make them public. However, three years have passed and the agency has failed to release the two audit reports to the public.
The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Report on Guyana for 2021 flagged the secrecy of ExxonMobil’s audit reports. In 2019 ExxonMobil Guyana Limited (EMGL) began producing oil in the Stabroek Block. To this end, the report noted, “The amount of cost oil deductible by EMGL in arriving at profit oil is subject to audit by the Government of Guyana. At the date of this report, two such audits were carried out by separate teams, but agreement has not been reached on any potential adjustments to be made.”
It added, “These reports have not been made available to the public as the audits are considered incomplete.” The core objective of the EITI report is to help the understanding of the level of contributions of the extractive sector to the economic and social development of Guyana to improve transparency and good governance at all levels of the extractive industry value chain.
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