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Free, fair, fiscal framework

Jan 05, 2025 Editorial, News

Editorial…

Kaieteur News- Guyanese politicians are an amazing group of people.  They say one thing today, then redesign it tomorrow, when it is convenient to their positions to do so.  When they want to twist issues, they have no hesitation in doing so, regardless of how contradictory it makes them look.  When Bharrat Jagdeo was in the opposition, he found the worst words to describe the ExxonMobil contract.  He was right to do so, and to humiliate the APNU+AFC Coalition Government for what it did to Guyanese and their bright future when it signed that hellish oil deal.  Now there is a new Jagdeo, who as Guyana’s chief policymaker on oil, has suddenly found himself in a positive place with the same ExxonMobil contract that he once cursed before man and beast.

“So, for you to have a viable strategy, you have to ensure that you have a free, fair fiscal framework that allows an investor to make a decent return on their capital if they take the risk.”  In his clever, backhanded way Jagdeo just shared with Guyanese his new platform (and strategy) with the heinous 2016 contract masterminded by ExxonMobil and dumbly signed by the APNU+AFC Coalition.  “A free, fair fiscal framework” is Jagdeo’s sly way of immersing that monster of an oil contract within his government’s overall program of concessions and so forth.  Large companies, meaning foreign oil companies and their sidekicks, are incentivized to take the risk, because their return on capital invested is attractive.  This is Guyana’s chief oil policymaker at his craftiest and nimblest.  To repeat, he smoothly lumped the ExxonMobil oil contract within a block of incentives and was brazen enough to call it “a free, fair fiscal framework” for those putting in their US billions into Guyana’s oil projects.

Take away Jagdeo’s voice and photograph and the words could have been associated with former Minister Raphael Trotman (or any other coalition luminary) of the last government.  Stranger things have happened before in Guyana, but this definitely qualifies as being among the strangest.  Jagdeo has pulled fast ones and rabbits from hats before, but he outdid himself on this occasion.  He once took joy in beating the oil contract into the dust.  Now he tells the media, with the most solemn facial expression he can manage, about “free, fair fiscal framework” to induce investors to Guyana and keep them and their scarce investment dollars here.  Without a doubt, the former Leader of the Opposition has remade himself into a contract magician and statistician all in one.

ExxonMobil and its partners are incentivized under this newly minted so-called “free, fair fiscal framework”, of that there is no argument.  The Chief Executive Officers of ExxonMobil and the Hess Corporation, Darren Woods and John Hess respectively have sung Guyana’s oil and Guyana’s oil glamor to the whole world.  Their basis is this country’s high-quality oil that can be had so cheaply.  The 2016 contract made Guyana’s oil as cheap as a yard sale for knickknacks.  Sweeten the contract pot with massive tax concessions for vehicles, machinery, equipment, and personnel, and this is what Bharrat Jagdeo is now selling to Guyanese as “a free, fair fiscal framework.”  Free and fair, it may be, but for whom?

Jagdeo’s fair fiscal framework cannot be with 2% in royalties for Guyana.  Which national leader from any part of the globe, and with some sense of self-respect about themselves, would call collecting zero taxes on billions in profits for oil companies fair?  At a higher level than Jagdeo, the PPPC Government has taken the position that the ExxonMobil contract cannot be renegotiated, or touched in any way, due to its sanctity.  Chief policymaker Jagdeo has a duty, therefore, to explain to the people of this nation how this “fair fiscal framework” is “free.”  Jagdeo is a master of coming up with new and newer concoctions to justify not renegotiating the ExxonMobil contract.  “Free, fair fiscal framework” now stands as his latest piece of concoction wizardry.

What ExxonMobil’s Alistair Routledge, has been marketing as a fair contract, Jagdeo now parrots using his own carefully picked string of words.  ExxonMobil has been selling how good it is to Guyana.  Now, Jagdeo has joined the company’s chorus.

(Free, fair, fiscal framework)

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