OGGN and taxes

Oct 05, 2025 Editorial, News

(Kaieteur News) – The Oil and Gas Governance Network (OGGN) has done wonders for Guyanese. In going above and beyond, OGGN has excelled, produced some movement that should make every Guyanese glow with pride. Every Guyanese that is interested in getting the most out of their oil patrimony, with an emphasis on what is right, what is fair. Although it has covered a broad swath of oil and gas issues, the OGGN team made taxes from Guyana’s oil partner, ExxonMobil, the central focus of its efforts over an extended period of time. The wheels took some time to roll, but now ExxonMobil and its tax dealings in Guyana have been taken to a new level, a very high one.

Three members of the august US Senate have picked up the tax baton and are running with it. Senators Jeff Merkley, Chris Van Hollen, and Sheldon Whitehouse have had their interest stirred over the peculiar tax arrangements orchestrated by ExxonMobil in Guyana. The senators have written to the company’s CEO, Darren Woods, for information related to its tax arrangements in Guyana’s oil and gas sector. What is ExxonMobil paying as taxes in Guyana, and how does that mechanism work? Their concern is that ExxonMobil found a way where “American taxpayers may be subsidizing ExxonMobil’s foreign oil production, which they do in partnership with a Chinese state-owned company.”

OGGN had a hand in this development coming out of the US Senate, and for that alone, the group is deserving of respect and gratitude of Guyanese who care about their oil wealth, and are outraged at the unfairness of many provisions in the ExxonMobil-Guyana oil contract of 2016. The payment of taxes is one source of local disquiet. The murky and tricky components of tax payments, who pays, and tax receipts have all come in for the closest scrutiny and condemnation, but to no avail.

When tax receipts were requested by OGGN, the Guyana Government dug in its heels, and held fast to silence and resistance to producing them. Despite a multiweek campaign of letter writing in Guyana’s main independent newspapers, ventilating the tax issue and seeking supporting details, the PPPC Government responded in what has become one of its defining features. The government erected a stonewall to thwart the efforts of OGGN, and then decided that it was in its best interests to mount a sustained attack on the group and some of its members using its flock of paid propagandists.

There was the irony of a government whose leading spokespeople were, at one time, incensed at the reprehensible terms and conditions of the ExxonMobil oil contract, then turning around and trying to crush those Guyanese who continued to object to the contract, and matters such as the payment of taxes. Rather than the government seizing the opening and using the energy and output of OGGN as leverage against ExxonMobil, it was committed to doing the opposite, which was throttle the messenger. The new inquirers about what is behind the layers of camouflage involving ExxonMobil’s payment of taxes in Guyana, and related tax receipts, are from deep inside of the chambers of the US Senate. We shall see how this shapes up, where developments will lead. Will Darren Woods waffle, or will he produce what was requested? He waffles, he could end up opening a can of worms and find himself hauled into the political spotlight, the last place that he or his company wants to be.

Separately, two secondary issues can be derived from this slippery tax matter surrounding ExxonMobil. A matter of this significance, one that involves potentially billions of US dollars should have pushed the PPPC Government to distance from ExxonMobil’s tax scheming. No tax paid, no tax receipts, and not this convoluted dodge that fooled only the naïve. No self-respecting government with honest leadership should be party to what is clearly odious. Also, what OGGN did was take a single issue (tax) and made it the center of its efforts, now showing blossoms. Last, OGGN took an issue that the opposition should have owned, and spearheaded the charge through its tireless efforts. When Guyana’s government and opposition were reduced to impotency, it fell on OGGN and others to stand and fight.

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