Spending Guyana’s oil money to monitor Guyana’s media

May 15, 2024 Editorial

Kaieteur News – We always suspected that this was what the oil partner of Guyanese, ExxonMobil, was doing. Now we know for a fact what this partner of Guyanese was doing. It was using millions of US dollars to watch and study the Guyana media. This was what the auditors, Ramdihal & Haynes Inc., et al discovered, and it is not a shabby story, a sick one. It tells how far ExxonMobil would go to identify those media entities that pose a threat in what they report, and how they report. When we think of how low this world profit leader of an American oil company would go, the analogy of an anxious, fearful spouse deepens, one who is spying on the other, one that may do dangerous things.

The auditors rejected ExxonMobil’s submission of US$2,465,061 for its Public Affairs Program. Public Affairs Program is the shiny white linen that conceals spying on the Guyanese media. ExxonMobil has no trouble with, would not waste time, monitoring either the State-controlled media, or the private media that is friendly to the government. Its monitoring, which is a nice word for spying, could be asserted as undermining in some subtle way, is focused on the small independent media corps that exists in Guyana. At a quick count, there are only a handful of such independent and outspoken media presences in this country, with this paper leading the way on oil matters, and another flexing its muscles in the same direction. No matter how tiny the local independent media community, ExxonMobil has an interest, and what must be fierce objections, all things being equal, to any oil article, any oil posture and commentary, that exposes its lopsided relationship with Guyana and what has been its practices and their consequences for Guyanese. Because this profit-driven, profit at all costs, and maximum profit by any means American oil company has engaged in what we believe are dubious practices, the consequences for Guyanese are emerging, but still largely unknown. It is why ExxonMobil spent close to GY$500M (half a billion Guyana dollars) to monitor the local media. To make matters even uglier, ExxonMobil is so brazen that it used Guyana’s oil revenues to monitor independent Guyana media houses.

Part of that US$2.465M would have provided financial support for counter messages to blunt or dilute exposés from a media entity like this paper. Exposés about toxic dumping, flaring into the atmosphere, the enslaving 2016 ExxonMobil oil contract, the expense inflating, the lack of ring-fencing provisions, installing meters at the production sites, and the glaring lack of transparency in most oil operations. Instead of ExxonMobil using its strength to resolve these troubling issues, it was spending Guyanese oil money to use its Guyanese media helpers to monitor mostly the independent Guyana media. The monitoring, which we insist is another name for spying, has its own professional labels. There was media messaging, which had to include efforts to counteract stories in the media that made ExxonMobil look irresponsible. There was issues management, which is how to put a hard corporate spin on revealing articles that left ExxonMobil looking not like a partner but a determined predator. The farce of public consultations was another sponge to absorb Guyanese oil money to deceive them and mislead them. There was spending millions of US dollars to propagandise the fairness and honesty of ExxonMobil through outreaches and what were categorised as public service messages. Those could never be said to serve the interests of locals, but what served the interests of ExxonMobil, one of which is to brainwash Guyanese via billboards and low self-esteem Guyanese who would do the company’s bidding for a dollar.

The schemers and movers at ExxonMobil clearly decided to proceed on a path of conditioning Guyanese through its public affairs program. The company used the people’s money to do so, instead of agreeing to deal with them fairly and give them the kind of money that represents their rightful share of their patrimony. Monitor instead of making good on this abusive partnership relationship. Make use of millions to mold the mind of Guyanese through the various forms of issues management. Those can never be part of oil production operations, only weakening Guyanese further.

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ExxonMobil, Government, Guyana, media, money, Public Affairs Program

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