Governing in secrecy

Apr 22, 2025 Editorial, News

---

Kaieteur News- Calls for transparency and access to information in this country always raise the ire of the government. You are either branded political and called all manner of names or totally ignored. This is the case of those demanding a better functioning Commission of Information. When it comes to matters of the oil sector, non-transparency is probably the watchword from the ruling class. A major initiative such as the gas-to-energy project is still mired in secrecy and citizens have been told that critical information would only be provided to the public when the entire scheme is completed.

As we have reported despite the government’s assurances, transparency around the GTE project remains a growing concern. ExxonMobil Guyana Limited (EMGL), operator of the Stabroek Block, completed the pipeline component of the project as of December 2024. However, the agreements between the company and the Government of Guyana (GoG) have yet to be disclosed to the public.  Key documents such as the Gas Sales Agreement and the Heads of Agreement remain inaccessible.

Since 2022, the government signed a Heads of Agreement with the Stabroek Co-Venturers, outlining the principles and conditions for the commercial and technical arrangements of the project. Despite this, the government has yet to release the full set of agreements to the public.

The pipeline component of the project, constructed by ExxonMobil is estimated to cost about US$1 billion. Although the structure is complete, the contractor has not revealed the final cost of that element. Despite calls from various sections of society for the agreements between the GoG and the contractor to be made public, the government has not budged in releasing the documents. The gas-to-energy project is the largest investment in this country’s history, yet its citizens must wait until it is completed to get critical information.

Leaders in the PPP/C Government may think they are so sophisticated that what they are doing goes over the heads of Guyanese. Perhaps, if the government’s practices were some occasional events, there might have been some truth to what government leaders comfort themselves in thinking.

Also, if what they are doing and plan to do involved matters of tiny importance, they could have gotten away with those situations. Since none of the above applies when PPP/C Government practices are studied, then they have fooled few, thus narrowing prospects of success in their culture of larceny.

Because unthinking arrogance now controls Government leaders, they are their own worst enemies. They are too predictable, too detectable, and have degraded into what is the unbelievable. Said differently, they have not only shot off their mouths, but have also shot themselves in the foot. It is why they are always on the defensive and running for cover when the bigger things in Guyanese life form the centre of attention.
First, what the PPP/C Government has done is to have visited the same wells once too often. A smart set of leaders would have some restraining hand and voice on the inside to say let us not go down this road again, or so quickly. It is why so many have come to discern a certain pattern of leadership behaviour that can only be described as purely criminal. Such things can only be stuffed down the throats of utter idiots, and in a watchful and critical and untrusting society, there are only a few imbeciles.
Second, once money is involved, government are bound to be present, and the bigger the sum involved, the more of them and bigger ones among them gather under the money tree. This is now as good as a guarantee, with one project after another furnishing a long chain of evidence. The biggest money mass in Guyana today (though relatively small, it is growing) is in the natural resource magic coming out of the ground called oil. Government leaders gather there.

Oil causes drooling, makes them not know what to do with themselves. In the rush and free for all, they are so compulsively greedy; they are elbowing even their own out of the way, or tripping them up with tricks, so as not to lessen their share of the thievery. This is how pathetic they come across, what the sum of their self-enriching antics provides inarguable confirmation. Incidentally, what they are engaging in with the wholesale setting up of themselves and their circle of cronies so that they can steal at will is not antics, but criminality of a kind rarely seen, even by rapacious Third World leadership standards.
Third, the avarice is not limited to oil alone, but stretches sucking tentacles into gold school grants, scholarships. Nothing is beyond the covetousness and ugliness of these thieving men and women elected to lead a poor nation forward.

Prime lands and prized real estate properties catch their eye, they even help themselves from sugar money (robbing their own), such is the intensity of their addiction to money. Perhaps, if they were contented with stealing on a below the radar level, they may have flourished, but they can’t help themselves, so it must be everything and the bigger the better.
Similarly, anything related to quality in this society is of no interest to these leaders. Quality would mean spending for others to benefit, hence less for them. Quantity is king, and the larger the amount from a sector or a project, the bigger the take. Last, anything associated with consolidating their power brings a huge rush. For such means that they become more entrenched, and longer at the national trough, while the people starve and eat each other. There is no genuine talk today of a truly inclusionary democracy, for that translates to restraints and having to spread the nation’s wealth. They delay watchdog bodies, but rush through so-called electoral reform. They scorn national unity, since that leads to more bodies at the banquet.

---

---