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Why secrets?
Kaieteur News – Secrets should be embedded in Guyana’s national pledge and Coat-of-Arms. Secrets now form such a vast part of the PPPC Government’s routines that it is bogged down by the issues it is hiding, leaving leaders trapped flatfooted time and again. A government that insists it is about transparency has an Access to Information Office that is the equivalent of an unbreachable wall (little to no information released), leaders that dance their way around tough questions and issues. Further to those practices, deflecting has now become a way of life for the government in law enforcement operations, media manipulations and, most of all, the vital oil and gas sector.
Guyana’s costliest project to date, the Wales gas-to-Energy (GTE) now resembles a house of secrets. The operation is clouded in secrecy, related contracts and agreements are held as closely guarded secrets, and when information has to be released, there is passing from hand to hand, with the maintenance of secrets continuing. The simple issue of laying agreements signed by the government in parliament, so that they can be openly examined and discussed, traveled a circle that spanned from Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat, to Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Texeira, to the 2nd Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo, to the 1st Vice President Mark Phillips. At the end of that circle, the Wales GTE agreements are still kept secret, with no laying of them in parliament. What do senior government officials Vice President Jagdeo and Prime Minister Phillips have to hide? What mistakes have been made, what wrongs committed, that there has to be this painful resorting to secrecy? When there are things to be hidden, as if the fate of the government hangs in the balance, then what has happened is seen. Though seen and heard, it is still difficult to believe, especially given the rank of government leaders in the middle of this whole mess.
The Wales GTE has had several delays, and it is almost a foregone conclusion that the present project price of US$2B has long breathed its last, is as good as dead. The secrets that have plagued this project from the beginning have piled so high that they are beginning to sway and threaten to topple over. Such as how many millions were awarded and paid to Lindsayca, or is that arbitration still an unfinished piece of business? Such as, would a credible feasibility study of the Wales GTE have identified the soil stabilisation issue that is now a source of dispute, delay, and expense between the contractor and the Guyana Government? Such as, would the costly delays and growing lack of confidence in this US$2B GTE project been avoided if the government was more transparent, instead of dealing in secrets, from its basis to supporting technical and financial documents? A question of increasing concern to more citizens is whether the promised 50% reduction in energy bills is still deliverable? What can be believed about this project, and which government official could still be trusted?
The newest development concerns the gas to be supplied to the finished project. Guyana should not be paying ExxonMobil one dollar for any gas, be it one cubic foot or one million. Regardless of the millions of cubic feet of gas to be supplied daily, Guyana should not be paying anyone for its own gas assets. The fact that this gas payment issue even exists goes to show how one government after the other does not know, or doesn’t care to know, how best to manage this great national patrimony. It is obvious, that the PPPC Government and the former APNU+AFC Coalition Government have both failed to represent this country at even the most basic level.
When issues such as how the US$1B undersea gas pipeline constructed by ExxonMobil is to be repaid, different officials gave different answers. VP Jagdeo said one thing, GTE Consultant, Brassington said another, and ExxonMobil’s Guyana President Routledge said something else. First, the gas is free, then the gas isn’t free, then repayment is from Cost Oil. Deal in secrets, and secrets will twist lips, trip feet. When the PPPC Government began with secrets, a deeper hole is now needed to hide more secrets.
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