ExxonMobil’s public consultations

Jul 26, 2024 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Thanks to the ongoing exposures of this newspaper about the deficits in the massive oil sector, the PPP/C Government has finally stirred and now plans to send representatives to see what’s going on at ExxonMobil’s public consultations. The Opposition PNCR is clear in its response to the company’s 10 public consultations for the seventh oil project, Hammerhead. It will not waste time and attend what is a sham by both ExxonMobil and the government. Meanwhile, ExxonMobil keeps moving along unconcernedly as if in full control of this country, its oil wealth, and the PPP/C Government.

The oil projects have come at a steady pace, with six of them approved and in ExxonMobil’s hand. The company has held public consultations before, and they have been a study in clever dodging. Any talk about money from the projects is squashed immediately, shutdown as being outside the scope of the meetings. Guyanese have repeatedly expressed their frustrations at the farces that ExxonMobil’s public consultations have become. What is declared by ExxonMobil’s officials not to be relevant to the consultations hosted by ExxonMobil is quickly suppressed by ExxonMobil’s Guyanese hired hands. There is the spectacle of Guyanese pushing against Guyanese, putting some of the harder questions posed in a vise, while company officials sit back, say a silent word of thanks for their loyal Guyanese servants. It was sugar and cotton and tobacco slavery before in America, where this used to happen. Now, in 21^st century Guyana, white Americans pat themselves on the back for recruiting non-White Guyanese to perpetuate what is nothing but Guyanese oil slavery. This is the continuing story of some of those at the bottom joining with the exploiters to exploit their own.

Now Guyana’s oil czar, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo is moved to act. “We should have people there. We can’t allow these people (ExxonMobil) to run amok. I don’t know what they are going to say, they telling people all kinds of stupidness…” This is a major development from Jagdeo, in the late breaking news category. This is the national leader who is always prioritizing foreign investor interests above those of Guyanese. It is good to observe him finding his voice, as he fires away by instructing Natural Resources Minister Vickram Bharrat to ensure that there are government people at those consultations. We are not impressed by what could be a public tantrum with no meaning from Guyana’s leading oilman. Our hope is that the presence of government people at ExxonMobil’s farcical public consultations is not the latest sham in a whole series of earlier shams. On most occasions that Guyanese have taken what Jagdeo has said at face value, they usually end up regretting being so generous. Unfortunately, this is now the norm from the PPP/C Government and its chief oilman Jagdeo with every aspect of this country’s rich natural resources. This great oil asset stands as the biggest and brightest exhibit.

The PNCR is not sending anyone to ExxonMobil’s public consultations. It will not be part of what is a joke, where decisions have already been made by the company working hand in glove with the PPP/C Government to pull the wool over the heads of Guyanese. Though we at this paper also recognize that the company’s public consultations have been a farce, a sham, a joke, we still send reporters. Their job is to ask questions and record the “kinds of stupidness” (as Jagdeo said may be happening) that comes out from ExxonMobil’s people, as they try to evade probing questions. This is a duty that is owed to Guyanese. Along the same lines, we think that the Opposition PNCR should still have some ears at the public consultations, if only to arm itself as to the newest shenanigans that the company may have in mind. The Opposition PNCR has a huge fraction of Guyana’s electorate that is looking to it for answers, to battle for them. The group not having its own boots on the ground during ExxonMobil’s public consultations can only be described as a disservice not just to its own supporters, but to all Guyanese.

It took a long time, but ExxonMobil’s public consultations are now a total disgrace, a complete disaster.

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Consultations, Editorial, ExxonMobil, Government, Hammerhead

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