Unlike the Minister of Government Affairs and Governance, OGGN has done its homework

Mar 22, 2025 Letters

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Dear Editor,

Reference is made to a press release dated March 17, 2025, issued by the Department of Information, titled “Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Responds to OGGN.” Minister Gail Teixeira was responding to a letter from the Oil and Gas Governance Network (OGGN) Guyana, titled “Minister Teixeira Must Address UN Concerns on Access to Information Act,” published in the Sunday edition of Kaieteur News on March 16, 2025. In that letter, OGGN urged Minister Teixeira to address concerns raised by the UN Human Rights Committee (UN-HRC) regarding Guyana’s Access to Information Act 2011.

OGGN has been highlighting, in a series of letters to the Sunday press, the lack of transparency in tax payments made by the Government of Guyana on behalf of ExxonMobil, Hess, and CNOOC, as stipulated in the 2016 Petroleum Agreement. Most notably, last Sunday’s letter outlined several unsuccessful attempts by OGGN and other organisations, including the Transparency Institute Guyana Inc. (TIGI), to obtain relevant information on the flow of tax payments and other oil industry-related data from the Commissioner of Information, Justice Charles Ramson Sr., under the Access to Information Act. Broad access to public information is essential for good governance and anti-corruption efforts, especially in the management of natural resources such as oil and gas.

In this context, OGGN welcomes Minister Teixeira’s decision to engage in dialogue with us. Unfortunately, the Minister failed to address the core issues raised in our letter. Instead, she offered a lecture on how to obtain financial statements of oil companies from the Deeds and Commercial Registries Authority, concluding with the following statement:

“Against the foregoing, we wish to reject OGGN’s baseless aspersions. We urge that in the future, they do their homework thoroughly.”

While our letter did not request financial statements from oil companies, we are pleased to confirm that we have already obtained and reviewed the financial statements of ExxonMobil Guyana Ltd., Hess Guyana Exploration Ltd., and CNOOC Petroleum Ltd. for the years 2020 to 2023. Moreover, OGGN has analyzed these documents. However, we cannot verify the accuracy of the reported figures without access to the tax certificates issued by the Guyana Revenue Authority and details on the flow of tax payments from the Ministries of Natural Resources and Finance.

OGGN acknowledges that Guyana honours the long-standing right to taxpayer confidentiality, as set out in Section 4 of the Income Tax Act (1929) and Section 23(1) of the Revenue Authority Act (1996). However, as a member of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), Guyana has an obligation to uphold EITI’s standards. In its 2020 annual report, GY-EITI noted that the confidentiality provisions conflict with EITI’s 2019 requirements for the disclosure of tax payments in the extractive sector, and urged the Government to modernize legislation to ensure compliance with the EITI Code. (See Guyana Standard, July 10, 2023, “EITI demands legislative changes to GRA, Income Tax Act to remove confidentiality constraints in extractive sector.”)

Given this, we take this opportunity to remind the Honourable Minister that she, too, has unfinished homework.

Outstanding Issues the Minister Must Address

Beyond legislative updates to the tax laws, outstanding issues remain under the Minister’s purview. In its May 2024 Concluding Observations on Guyana’s implementation of the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the UN-HRC urged the State party to:

• Ensure the independence, effectiveness, transparency, and accountability of all anti-corruption bodies, including the Commissioner of Information (Section 11c).
• Guarantee that the right of access to information held by the Commissioner can be effectively exercised in practice (Section 11d).

Since Minister Teixeira represented Guyana at the UN-HRC hearings, OGGN formally requests that she publicly address the following:

1. What measures have been taken to ensure the effective implementation of the Access to Information Act 2011?
2. What steps have been taken to improve the accountability and transparency of the Commissioner of Information?
3. For which years did the Commissioner submit annual reports to the National Assembly, and when were they submitted, as required by the Act?
4. How has the Act been revised to facilitate citizen access to public information, excluding matters of personal privacy or national security?

A point-by-point response from the Minister would demonstrate to the Guyanese public that the Administration’s repeated commitments to transparency, accountability, and good governance are backed by substance, not just condescending lectures and empty rhetoric.

Refocusing on the Core Issues

While the inaction of the Commissioner of Information is serious in its own right, and the Minister’s obfuscation is troubling, these serve only to distract from the main questions OGGN continues to raise:

1. Where did the money come from, each year, for the Minister of Natural Resources to pay the Commissioner-General of the Guyana Revenue Authority the in-lieu taxes of the three oil companies in the Stabroek Block consortium, as required by Section 15.4(a) of the 2016 Petroleum Agreement?
2. Since in-lieu taxes are not a defined component of Guyana’s share of profit oil, and therefore not visible in regular Natural Resources Fund reports, where in the published government accounts and/or national budget estimates are these specific in-lieu taxes reflected?

A Reminder on Democratic Governance

A defining difference between autocracies and democracies is that, in a democracy, the government exists to serve the people—not the other way around. Transparency, accountability, and access to information are fundamental rights that empower citizens and strengthen democracy.

Guyana signed the Escazú Regional Agreement on Freedom of Information and Transparency on September 27, 2018, and ratified it on April 22, 2021. Public officials have a duty to uphold these principles, ensuring that governance is conducted in the best interests of the people.

A government that withholds critical information from its citizens undermines public trust and impedes national progress.

Sincerely,

Andre Brandli

Janette Bulkan

Kenrick Hunte

Darshanand Khusial

Joe Persaud

Mike Persaud

For the Oil and Gas Governance Network Guyana (OGGN) [www.oggn.org]

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