Latest update January 6th, 2025 4:00 AM
AFC reaffirms commitment to changes in oil deal to benefit Guyanese -Patterson
Kaieteur News – The Alliance for Change (AFC) on Friday reaffirmed its commitment to making changes in the Guyana’s oil contract should the party be elected to Government, General Secretary David Patterson said.
General Secretary of the Alliance for Change David Patterson.
The AFC was part of the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) coalition government when the lopsided 2016 Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) was signed with oil giant ExxonMobil.
At the party’s press conference held at the Centre For Change building, Railway Embankment, Kitty, Georgetown, Patterson said that, “The Alliance For Change is in favor of any revision for any PSA which will be to the benefit of the Guyanese public and we maintain that position. So any revision that will be benefitting (our people) we will be supporting (it) and I have made this statement in parliament for every budget since 2020.”
The party has been voicing its commitment to renegotiate for a better deal for a number of years, and in 2021 Patterson had appeared on an interview a Kaieteur Radio programme ‘Guyana’s Oil and You’ where he said that during the five years that the APNU/AFC was in government they did not get a chance to correct the lopsided deal.
Further, Patterson said that should the Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) government intend to renegotiate the oil contract, then the AFC will offer its “unconditional support.”
In October 2022, Kaieteur News reported that the AFC again made known its commitment to renegotiate the 2016 oil deal and to stand with the current government to change the said deal with Exxon.
The party’s Chairperson, Catherine Hughes had explained that the group believes renegotiating the agreement should not be approached in an isolated manner but the country’s leaders should hold hands on the matter.
In response to a question by this publication, Hughes said, “the renegotiation of the contract should be considered in the same spirit with which we work together- Opposition and Government, we work together on issues that have to do with our border and as you know, the border dispute and this is where we’ve said quite a few times that we are willing to support the Government in going to Exxon as Guyana – a unified Guyana – to look at how, we renegotiate.”
Former Leader of the AFC, Khemraj Ramjattan had previously pointed out that the whopping 10 billion barrel increase in oil reserves in the rich Stabroek Block is more than enough reason to get the oil company back to the table.
“We have indicated, and I publicly have indicated that yes, indeed (we can renegotiate) because we understand the changed circumstances but more than that, the PPP when it was in Opposition had said that our agreement was so rotten that they will renegotiate. Did they fool all of us here? It would appear so because they have an obligation, a bounding duty to go now and renegotiate with all that is happening,” Ramjattan told the media.
He added that while the AFC has already made its position clear about changing the contract due to the changed circumstance, he does not believe that General Secretary of the PPP, Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo would be willing to move in this direction.
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